TOKYO (AP) — Japan intervened in the currency market Wednesday for the first time in six years to weaken the yen, which had spiked to 15-year highs against the dollar, battering the country’s vital exporters.
The dollar climbed to 84.99 yen from a low of 82.87 yen earlier after Japan’s central bank stepped into the market to sell yen and buy dollars shortly after 10:30 a.m. local time (0130 GMT). It was the first time since March 2004 that Japan had intervened in the currency market.
“We have conducted an intervention in order to suppress excessive fluctuations in the currency market,” said Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda. “We will closely monitor currency developments, and take firm action including intervention,” Noda said.
The yen had spiked to a fresh 15-year high after Prime Minister Naoto Kan survived a leadership challenge by winning a ruling party vote Tuesday. Currency traders had bet that Kan was unlikely to intervene.
A strong yen hurts Japanese exporters like Honda Motor Co. and Panasonic Corp. by making their products less competitive in overseas markets and eroding their foreign income when repatriated.
Investors in Japanese stocks welcomed the currency move, sending the Nikkei 225 stock average up by 256.37 points, or 2.8 percent, to 9,555.53.
Noda said Japan acted alone in intervening in the market and that other central banks were not involved. That caused some analysts to predict the impact of the intervention would be short-lived.
“The effect from Japan’s solo intervention won’t last very long. We have to see how the U.S. and European monetary authorities would react,” said Yuji Kameoka, chief forex strategist at Daiwa Institute.
Between January 2003 and January 2004, Japan sold a total of about 35 trillion yen in a massive effort to fight deflation and slow the appreciation of its currency. But the intervention had little lasting effect in thwarting the yen’s gradual climb.
One reason that intervention is likely to be even less potent nowadays is that the volume of the foreign exchange trading has grown rapidly in recent years. Since 2007, average daily turnover has risen 20 percent to $4 trillion, according to the Bank of International Settlements. That means intervention by a single government ends up being akin to a drop in the ocean.
More recently, Switzerland’s central bank abandoned its efforts to soften the Swiss franc, which had risen rapidly in the wake of financial crisis.
“Although the central bank’s policy initially appeared successful, its experience this year illustrates why interventions may not be effective,” a JPMorgan report said this summer.
Japanese officials would not provide a figure for how much yen the central bank had sold in the market.
Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa also confirmed the intervention, highlighting in a statement uncertainty over the future of the U.S. economy.
“Currency movement and stock prices have been unstable, turning into a situation that requires caution over the downside risk for the economy in our country,” Shirakawa said.
The central bank would continue to pursue an easy money policy and “provide ample money supply into the financial market,” he said.
The dollar hit a postwar record low of 79.75 yen in 1995.
Until Wednesday, the government had sought help from the Bank of Japan to tweak monetary policy in response to the climbing yen. The policy board called an emergency meeting last month, when it expanded a low-interest loan program to boost liquidity.
In the spirit of offering low/no interest loans, I propose that the BOJ start an “Adopt an In-Trouble U.S. Homeowner” program where applicants turned down for loan-mods can be adopted with a 99 year, 0% lease option financed directly from the BOJ…..That way, us consumers can turn around and spend newly found cash on discretionary items made by Sony.
In the spirit of offering low/no interest loans, I propose that the BOJ start an “Adopt an In-Trouble U.S. Homeowner” program where applicants turned down for loan-mods can be adopted with a 99 year, 0% lease option financed directly from the BOJ…..That way, us consumers can turn around and spend newly found cash on discretionary items made by Sony.
In the spirit of offering low/no interest loans, I propose that the BOJ start an “Adopt an In-Trouble U.S. Homeowner” program where applicants turned down for loan-mods can be adopted with a 99 year, 0% lease option financed directly from the BOJ…..That way, us consumers can turn around and spend newly found cash on discretionary items made by Sony.
In the spirit of offering low/no interest loans, I propose that the BOJ start an “Adopt an In-Trouble U.S. Homeowner” program where applicants turned down for loan-mods can be adopted with a 99 year, 0% lease option financed directly from the BOJ…..That way, us consumers can turn around and spend newly found cash on discretionary items made by Sony.
In the spirit of offering low/no interest loans, I propose that the BOJ start an “Adopt an In-Trouble U.S. Homeowner” program where applicants turned down for loan-mods can be adopted with a 99 year, 0% lease option financed directly from the BOJ…..That way, us consumers can turn around and spend newly found cash on discretionary items made by Sony.
