Euro tumbles against Japanese Yen on suspected Japan’s intervention
- The Euro falls sharply against the Japanese Yen on expectations that Japan has intervened in the FX market.
- Japan’s Katayama already said that her government will respond appropriately to currency moves at any time.
- ECB’s Wunsch said that the central bank would need stronger second-round effects to justify further tightening.
The Euro (EUR) is down almost 0.5% to near 184.00 against the Japanese Yen (JPY) during the European trading session on Thursday. The EUR/JPY pair slumps as the Japanese Yen (JPY) delivers a sudden strong upside move, which appears to be the outcome of Japan’s intervention. However, there has been no official confirmation yet.
Japanese Yen Price Today
The table below shows the percentage change of Japanese Yen (JPY) against listed major currencies today. Japanese Yen was the strongest against the Australian Dollar.
| USD | EUR | GBP | JPY | CAD | AUD | NZD | CHF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USD | -0.23% | -0.43% | -0.65% | -0.10% | 0.02% | -0.14% | -0.28% | |
| EUR | 0.23% | -0.19% | -0.42% | 0.12% | 0.24% | 0.12% | -0.05% | |
| GBP | 0.43% | 0.19% | -0.22% | 0.30% | 0.44% | 0.31% | 0.15% | |
| JPY | 0.65% | 0.42% | 0.22% | 0.54% | 0.67% | 0.50% | 0.36% | |
| CAD | 0.10% | -0.12% | -0.30% | -0.54% | 0.12% | -0.01% | -0.18% | |
| AUD | -0.02% | -0.24% | -0.44% | -0.67% | -0.12% | -0.13% | -0.32% | |
| NZD | 0.14% | -0.12% | -0.31% | -0.50% | 0.01% | 0.13% | -0.17% | |
| CHF | 0.28% | 0.05% | -0.15% | -0.36% | 0.18% | 0.32% | 0.17% |
The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the Japanese Yen from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent JPY (base)/USD (quote).
In the past few trading days, Japanese officials warned of intervention to curb excessive one-way moves in the Yen.
On Tuesday, Japan’s Finance Minister (FM) Satsuki Katayama said that her government “will respond appropriately to currency moves at any time as needed”. However, Katayama declined to comment on specific FX levels.
Meanwhile, the Euro (EUR) reflects a mixed performance against its major currency peers. On the monetary policy front, traders are likely to pare hawkish European Central Bank (ECB) bets as Eurozone inflation has cooled down.
On Wednesday, the flash Eurozone Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) data for June arrived at 2.8% Year-on-Year (YoY), lower than estimates of 3% and the previous reading of 3.2%. The core HICP – which excludes volatile components like food, energy, alcohol, and tobacco – also dropped to 2.4% YoY from May’s reading of 2.6%.
ECB officials are also signaling that the return of oil prices towards pre-Middle East war levels could ease inflation projections. The remarks from ECB policymaker and the head of Belgium's central bank, Pierre Wunsch, released by Econostream on Wednesday, have signaled that he is not in favor of further monetary policy tightening unless second-round effects of inflation emerges.
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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