The Japanese yen continued to weaken today on speculations about an intervention from the central bank and as the risk-on sentiment on the Forex market drove traders to currencies with higher yield.
The Bank of Japan policy meeting next week makes investors uneasy as they anticipate further easing of the monetary policy. There were some doubts if that is going to happen, which were caused by comments of Economy Minister Akira Amari. Yet now Amari says that his words were “distorted” by the media.
The events outside of Japan were also negative for the country’s currency. The US housing market looked good and unemployment claims fell more than was expected. Other safe currencies, including the Swiss franc, suffered from the resulting optimistic sentiment too.
USD/JPY climbed from 88.36 to 89.82 as of 23:55 GMT today and its intraday high of 90.12 was strongest since June 2010. EUR/JPY went up from 117.42 to 120.11, reaching 120.56 intraday — the highest rate since May 2011. GBP/JPY jumped from 141.43 to 143.48.
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