From our other sites
The story
In New York foreign exchange trading on the 3rd, the yen surged more than 3 yen against the dollar at one point, hitting ¥155.30. The move is attributed to growing expectations that the Bank of Japan will raise interest rates in September, prompting dollar-selling and yen-buying on bets that the Japan-U.S. interest rate gap will narrow. There has been no indication of currency intervention by the government or the BOJ. On 5ch, opinions were split over whether the move was driven by intervention or by the rate differential, with some users voicing concern about rising mortgage rates and others debating whether around ¥130 would be the level that truly matches Japan’s “real economic strength.”
[NEW YORK, Kyodo] The yen surged more than 3 yen against the dollar from the previous day at one point in New York foreign exchange trading on the 3rd, hitting ¥155.30. Dollar-selling and yen-buying prevailed on the view that a September BOJ rate hike is now all but certain, with markets focused on a narrowing Japan-U.S. interest rate gap.
There is no indication in the market that the Japanese government or the BOJ intervened to buy yen. As of 5 p.m., the dollar stood at ¥155.75-85, up 2.89 yen from the previous day. The euro traded at $1.1621-31, or ¥181.06-16.
September 4, 2026, 7:42 a.m., Kyodo News
Source: 47news.jp / Original article here
What people said
+5-10 million yen more in interest
Borrow it from your parents and pay it off immediately
The move is clearly different from usual, so it's hard to say for sure
No way it's intervention
If you actually watch the market regularly, you'd know that
The media ("masugomi"/trash media): "Raise rates already!"
↓
The media: "Rate hikes are hitting household budgets hard (dramatic pause)"
If the government changes now, will prices come back down too?
Just let me buy a high-end graphics card for ¥100,000 again
Given the current Japan-U.S. rate gap, the "fair value" for USD/JPY is supposedly around ¥130.
The moment yen carry-trade players sense they're about to take losses and start panicking, isn't that when it swings toward a stronger yen?
The U.S. wouldn't be able to keep up interest payments on its $40 trillion in debt
Even just 0.25% more works out to an extra ¥10 trillion in yen terms
That's exactly why they can't easily hike rates
The jobs report came in weak, and Trump's been against rate hikes too, so the market figures a U.S. hike just got pushed further out — hence the stronger yen
We're still fine for now
As long as the BOJ doesn't suddenly hike the policy rate by 0.5 points instead of the expected 0.25, it should be okay
Though Japan's higher-ups are slow to react and then overcorrect, so they might actually pull off something crazy like a 0.5-point hike…
If little old Japan could trigger a global depression, it would've already happened when the bubble burst
Foreign investors are using the low-interest yen to fund their investments now, so the situation is totally different from when the bubble burst
Foreign investors are borrowing huge sums from Japanese financial institutions — so why hasn't that pushed Japanese interest rates up?
The hedge funds have probably already shifted their money to Switzerland
They're not that careless
She's already locked in the ¥370 trillion package and the consumption tax cut lol
Any PM sensible enough to actually back off wouldn't have pushed reflationary policy during inflation in the first place
There isn't even that much inflation to begin with
Seems like you're misunderstanding
Nobody's saying to abandon big-spending fiscal policy
They're just saying to drop the deflation-era reflationary policy — and Japan's already doing that, lol
The monetary base is shrinking, the primary balance has improved massively into surplus, and the government debt-to-GDP ratio is falling too
Bessent probably doesn't understand any of that
It's just Japan, after all — he's probably never bothered looking into it properly
Background and Key Points
The yen is heavily influenced by the Japan-U.S. interest rate gap, so the yen tends to get bought up simply on growing expectations that the BOJ will raise rates, even before any hike actually happens. The thread quickly turned to debating whether the sudden jump to the ¥155 range was due to currency intervention, though no reports have indicated that the Finance Ministry or BOJ actually intervened. Some users also pointed to the risk that unwinding the “yen carry trade” — borrowing low-interest yen to invest in other countries’ assets — could trigger a sharp yen rally, and it’s worth keeping in mind that exchange rates tend to swing wildly once the rate gap starts narrowing. Opinions were also divided over how to judge the current administration’s economic policy; posts that devolved into purely political sniping were left out of this article.
*This article was compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Breaking News Plus) thread “[Forex] Yen Surges, Briefly Hits ¥155.30 as BOJ Rate Hike Seen as All But Certain.”
Leave a Reply