Japan fin min Kato with verbal intervention on yen
- No comment on FX levels
- Recently seeing one-sided, sharp moves
- Important for currencies to move in a stable manner reflecting fundamentals
- Will take appropriate action against excessive moves
- Concerned about recent FX moves, including those driven by speculation
****
Kato seems to have taken advice that saying hot words like:
- one-sided,
- sharp moves,
- speculation
will encourage market participants to take his threats more seriously. Unfortunately he says them a lot, prompting a ‘boy who cried wolf’ response. No one cares too much.
USD/JPY is around 157.85 or so, barely off its session high.