We have now seen the dollar fall approximately 600 pips against the Japanese Yen in just over week.  Alarms should be ringing at the Ministry of Finance and Bank of Japan because the 5% appreciation spells big trouble for Japan’s businesses and economy. However, everything that we have heard from the Japanese government so far suggests that they are not ready to intervene in the foreign exchange market to lower the value of their currency. The last time the Bank of Japan intervened in the currency was in 2011 after the earthquake and tsunami (and that was coordinated). Since then we have seen USDJPY fall as low as 76 and average around 102.25 over the past 4 years. So Japan has and can tolerate a stronger yen although they have less flexibility with monetary and fiscal policy because extensive action has already been taken through these years.

While we believe the Japanese government should intervene given the weakness of the currency, there are a number of reasons why they won’t:

On a fundamental basis, it is becoming clear that the BoJ could allow USD/JPY to fall to 105 and maybe even 100 before taking action. In early February they let USD/JPY fall close to 1100 pips before there was also indication of intervention. While it has not been confirmed on February 11^th, after dropping to a low of 110.98, USD/JPY jumped 200 pips in 20 minutes — price action that is indicative of intervention. USD/JPY still has 500 pips to go before this capitulation point, which would put the pair right between the 100 and 105 level. However we would be surprised if the BoJ let USD/JPY fall 1000 pips from its March 29^th high of 113.80 without checking rates near 105.