On Friday, Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki indicated that the Japanese govt is watching closely for forex market developments, hoping that the yen’s quick rise against the dollar and euro on Thursday continues, marking the end of market speculation and policy disruption by the Bank of Japan (BOJ).
Yen struggles as Japan’s finance minister keeps tabs on pairings
The yen climbed its highest in one day for almost a year against the euro on Thursday, which was hit by some minor losses. BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda addressed the options available to the BOJ, which entail paring back on interest rate hikes, cutting short-term borrowing costs or pushing the yen higher with further rate hiking. At the opening of Friday’s market, the yen registered 1.41.60 against the US dollar, and Ueda predicted “challenging” times ahead as global markets approach a tightening period before 2024.
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Thursday afternoon, Ueada met with Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, to discuss the direction of the BOJ’s monetary policy, financial trends and the promised spring 2024 wage negotiations.
TraderX strategist Michael Brown stated:
The market is very, very heavily short of the yen, and we’ve got a heavy consensus in for 2024 that this is going to be the year that they bring negative rates to an end. So, it shows the market is ready to latch on [to] absolutely anything that it can in light of that.
The BOJ has inexplicitly opposed the frenzied string of rate hikes performed by the US and many European governments, opting instead for lone holdouts for its central banks with low rates that have added to the yen’s weakness against the dollar. Some experts suggest that only BOJ intervention can prop up the weakening currency.
