Japanese Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama will announce on Monday that Tokyo and Washington took joint action to support the yen, marking the first coordinated currency intervention by the two nations since 2011, after the yen's sharp rebound last week fueled speculation of parallel official activity.
The Federal Reserve Bank of New York acted on July 31 on behalf of the U.S. Treasury to sell euros and buy yen, with trades executed by Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was photographed with a notepad listing a directive to purchase between $5 billion and $10 billion worth of yen. The Treasury later informed several banks to prepare for further action.
Japan's intervention scale is estimated at roughly 8.45 trillion yen, or about $52.8 billion, though Nikkei puts the figure between 6 trillion and 7 trillion yen. South Korea also sold dollars alongside Japan, helping the won firm 2 percent to a nine-month high. The Bank of Japan on Friday held policy steady while signalling a strong chance of an early rate hike.