Intervention bought Tokyo three weeks. The carry trade that funds half the world's risk appetite is already back near record size — and this time the exit runs straight through the US Treasury market.
MACRO / JAPAN-US TRANSMISSION Intervention bought Tokyo three weeks. The carry trade that funds half the world's risk appetite is already back near record size — and this time the exit runs straight through the US Treasury market. By Dorian — ZTrader Research / ZMACRO At 11:33am on July 31, a Reuters photographer at Camp David caught Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's notepad. Six words, visible over his shoulder: “To Do — Buy Japanese Yen $5-10 bil.” Within hours, Washington and Tokyo confirmed it — the first coordinated US-Japan currency intervention since 2011. The yen had just touched its weakest level against the dollar in roughly forty years. Japan's Ministry of Finance spent an estimated $53 billion buying yen between July 31 and August 1. The US Treasury sold euros alongside them and leaned on banks to fall in line. It was the second time in three months Tokyo had done this
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