yen

Japanese Stop Currency Speculation, Not Really

Japan intervened in their foreign exchange rates after the yen hit a post WWII high against the dollar.

The dollar spiked after the intervention as much as 4 percent past 79 yen from around 75.65 yen. The dollar touched a record low of 75.31 yen earlier on Monday.

Finance Minister Jun Azumi said Tokyo stepped into the market for the second time in less than three months on its own at 10:25 a.m. local time (0125 GMT) and would continue to intervene until it was satisfied with the results.

The Yen is considered safe haven and there have been other recent interventions:

Monday’s maneuver was the fourth time in just over a year that Japan has intervened to stem the yen’s rise.

The BBC reports the Yen dropped 5% to the dollar after the move. One must wonder why is such speculation going on with the Yen, which is considered save haven. It seems in spite of the big Greek debt haircut and U.S. Q3 GDP of 2.5%., markets are leery and believe little has be resolved.

It seems speculators are ganging up on the yen in spite of Japan's quantitative easing: