USD/JPY finds support at 156.20 following a post-election selloff
- USD/JPY returns to 156.70 after bottoming at 156.20 earlier on Monday.
- The Yen rallied after Takaichi's strong victory in Sunday's election.
- The US Dollar remains on the back foot amid rising hopes of further Fed rate cuts.
The US Dollar (USD) has regained some of the ground lost against the Japanese Yen (JPY) following Prime Minister Takaichi’s landslide victory in Sunday’s elections and has returned to the 156.70 area at the time of writing, after bottoming at 156.20 earlier on the day.
The pair, however, remains 0.3% down in the daily chart, following a knee-jerk reaction from two-week highs at 157.66 during the Early Asian session.
Investors dialled down Yen short positions after the results of the snap elections confirmed the expectations and gave Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi 316 of the 465 seats in the Japanese Lower House, the strongest victory ever for Takaichi’s Liberal Democratic Party (LDP).
Debt concerns keep Yen rallies limited
The prospects of a stable government, coupled with serious warnings of intervention by the Japanese Finance Minister Satsukikatayama and the top currency diplomat, Atsushi Mimura, deterred investors from reviving the “Takaishi trade,” which led to a significant Yen appreciation.
The market, however, is likely to come to terms with the fact that these results clear the path for Takaichi’s fiscal-expansive policies, which, considering the depleted government coffers, will keep the threat of a debt crisis looming. Not the best scenario for a steady Yen recovery.
The US Dollar, however, is having issues of its own as the weak employment figures released last week have boosted expectations that the Federal Reserve will have to do more. In this context, Fed speakers are likely to highlight the wide divergences within the monetary policy committee later today.
A string of key US economic releases, including the Nonfarm Payrolls (NFP), due later this week, might help to tip the scales to one side or the other.
Japanese Yen FAQs
The Japanese Yen (JPY) is one of the world’s most traded currencies. Its value is broadly determined by the performance of the Japanese economy, but more specifically by the Bank of Japan’s policy, the differential between Japanese and US bond yields, or risk sentiment among traders, among other factors.
One of the Bank of Japan’s mandates is currency control, so its moves are key for the Yen. The BoJ has directly intervened in currency markets sometimes, generally to lower the value of the Yen, although it refrains from doing it often due to political concerns of its main trading partners. The BoJ ultra-loose monetary policy between 2013 and 2024 caused the Yen to depreciate against its main currency peers due to an increasing policy divergence between the Bank of Japan and other main central banks. More recently, the gradually unwinding of this ultra-loose policy has given some support to the Yen.
Over the last decade, the BoJ’s stance of sticking to ultra-loose monetary policy has led to a widening policy divergence with other central banks, particularly with the US Federal Reserve. This supported a widening of the differential between the 10-year US and Japanese bonds, which favored the US Dollar against the Japanese Yen. The BoJ decision in 2024 to gradually abandon the ultra-loose policy, coupled with interest-rate cuts in other major central banks, is narrowing this differential.
The Japanese Yen is often seen as a safe-haven investment. This means that in times of market stress, investors are more likely to put their money in the Japanese currency due to its supposed reliability and stability. Turbulent times are likely to strengthen the Yen’s value against other currencies seen as more risky to invest in.
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