Japan Fighting the Market Blaming Speculator not Its Policies

Japan is cascading into a serious debt crisis. Even Japanese finance officials have come out and been shocked by the fall of the Japanese yen back to retest the lows of 1990. They have been urging the Bank of Japan to intervene in foreign exchange and are naturally blaming speculators. Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato came out and stated:

“As we are alarmed by recent currency market developments including those driven by speculators, we’ll take appropriate action against excessive moves.”

In every government, they will always blame speculators and never their own policies. The mere fact that Kato has publicly made this statement demonstrates that the currency market is rather alarming, and the government is very concerned about the collapse of the Japanese yen. Currently, the dollar is trading at the 151 level. A year-end closing above 148 will warn that the dollar can rally substantially in the 200 to 250 zone. A close BELOW 147 would imply we could see the yen consolidate into 2026, but then it would resume a decline into 2027. Japan did conduct an intervention into the FOREX market buying yen last July to support its currency after fell below 161 per dollar level.

The BOJ’s rate-setting meeting concluded, suggesting that the U.S.-Japan interest rate differentials may not narrow as fast as previously expected. They did confirm that a former employee’s theft of over 1 billion yen from customers’ deposit boxes did not help with confidence overall.