The Japanese yen has hit its highest level in three months after the US and Japan launched a coordinated intervention to support the currency. On Monday, the yen strengthened to ¥155 against the US dollar, its strongest since early May, after Tokyo and Washington confirmed they had carried out a rare joint currency intervention late last week.
Japan's finance ministry said on Monday that the two governments had conducted coordinated yen-buying intervention and would not hesitate to take further action. The intervention came after the yen had weakened to a 40-year low of almost ¥164 per dollar last week.
Donald Trump told reporters on Sunday: "They have a weakening yen, and they wanted a little bit of help. And we're always there for Japan." The yen had weakened in recent months as Japanese borrowing costs remained lower than in other advanced economies. This disparity fueled a so-called "carry trade," in which investors borrowed cheaply in yen to buy higher-yielding dollar assets.
The yen has also been affected by investors' concerns about Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi's push to use tax and spending measures to stimulate the economy, and her criticism of the Bank of Japan's interest rate hikes, which have also raised the country's borrowing costs.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Washington "will not hesitate to participate in further joint intervention," while repeating calls for further interest rate rises from Japan's central bank. On Saturday, a photograph of Bessent's notebook taken during a cabinet meeting showed that his "to do" list included buying $5bn-$10bn worth of Japanese yen.
This is the first collaboration involving Japan and the US since March 2011, when a joint intervention was made to weaken the yen after the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami. Lee Hardman, a currency analyst at MUFG bank, said: "The threat of further joint intervention and a faster pace of BoJ hikes should provide more support for the yen, and discourage speculators from running elevated short yen positions."
The consultancy Oxford Economics said the US-Japan coordinated intervention would not be enough to reverse the trend of yen weakness. "Despite rising market speculation about faster rate hikes by the Bank of Japan, we continue to assume the central bank waits until December because the intervention reduces the risk of a sharp yen depreciation and gives the BoJ more time to assess the impact of the Middle East conflict and past rate hikes on the economy," it said.