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The story
A thread on 5ch’s “Live: Anything Goes” (Nandemo Jikkyou) board is buzzing over the dollar/yen exchange rate sliding from ¥152 to near ¥158. Posters expressed shock that the yen kept weakening even though both Japan and the US hiked rates by 0.25%, with some pointing out that two dissenting votes at the Bank of Japan’s policy meeting led markets to conclude the BOJ would stay reluctant to keep hiking going forward. The thread ranged widely — from the limits of currency intervention and how much foreign reserves are left, to debate over whether Japan’s rising prices stem from imported inflation, to real FX trading profit-and-loss reports.
What people said
Bessent said there's no way the yen would weaken.
It's just slowly returning to its normal level after being distorted by intervention.
Fed: "We're hiking 0.25%!"
BOJ: "We're hiking 0.25%!"
The rate gap hasn't changed, so why is this happening?
The government's just making money off it.
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/aa057681c60f094984fb1ea67476b589d7f4b70c
WHOOOOAAA
Ah, the yen weakening is over.
Market: "Meh, they probably can't do much anyway, so might as well sell yen."
Are we gonna get scolded by Uncle Sam again??
Can't help it, the 🇺🇸 is hiking rates too.
Seriously, America meddles in our internal affairs way too much.
I'd guess it hits around 180 by next year.
Once the dollars are gone, it's really over.
That's not quite right.
There's still plenty left in the foreign reserves, but the US won't allow it to be used that way, and more importantly, Japan's higher-ups are thrilled about the weak yen.
Japan's higher-ups have no intention of ending the yen's slide, since it lets them squeeze the public's wealth to pay down the national debt.
Sorry to folks with variable-rate mortgages, but even for them, higher interest payments probably end up being less of a burden than runaway prices.
Either way, wouldn't raising rates eventually lead to higher prices too?
US CPI growth for July 2026 was 3.4%.
Japan's CPI growth for July 2026 was 1.9%.
Japan's price increases are just import prices rising due to inflation overseas feeding into domestic prices — it's not that prices are genuinely rising within Japan itself.
Despite the weak yen, prices in Japan have actually risen less than overseas.
Japan's inflation is being driven by inflation abroad, and Japan copes with weak domestic demand (deflation) by holding down wages, which keeps rising import costs from being fully passed on to retail prices.
What Japan needs isn't to hike rates and strengthen the yen —
it's to tackle the deflation hidden behind high import prices and raise real wages for working-age people.
Didn't you guys say the trend had reversed and it was headed to 120?
Look into Fibonacci retracements or whatever.
Even in a downtrend, it pulls back this much.
Everyone takes profit partway through.
It had originally priced in 1.25%, but since there were two dissenting votes today, the market read it as "these guys are going to keep dragging their feet on hikes" and dumped the yen hard.
Bet there are a lot of FX warriors out there either scoring huge or getting wrecked.
With Bessent and the rate hike in play, I figured I could just set it and forget it — then it shot up 4 yen in no time flat, and my ¥1M profit flipped into a ¥1.05M loss, for a net loss of ¥50k.
Off you go then~
Once foreign investors catch on, it'll climb again.
Yeah, probably.
Maybe right after Silver Week (Japan's late-September holiday stretch).
Only the ones who get whipsawed by every up and down end up taking the big losses.
Each hike's probably only good for about 1%.
A drop in the bucket.
If my assets are dollar-denominated, I'm fine with it going that high.
Background and Key Points
Currency intervention is carried out by Japan’s Ministry of Finance selling dollars from its foreign reserves to buy yen, which is why the remaining reserve balance draws so much attention. In the thread, opinions split between those arguing that “intervention hits its limit once the dollars run out” and those countering that “there’s still plenty left in reserves, but there’s no political will to stop the yen’s slide.” There was also commentary rooted in market psychology: even though Japan and the US both hiked rates by 0.25%, leaving the rate differential unchanged, the yen still weakened — because two dissenting votes at the BOJ’s policy meeting led markets to conclude the central bank would remain reluctant to keep hiking. Views were also split on what’s driving the price increases — cost-push from rising import prices versus genuine domestic demand — and it’s worth keeping in mind that the simple notion that “raising rates fixes both the exchange rate and prices” can be misleading.
*This article is compiled and summarized from the 5ch “Live: Anything Goes” (Nandemo Jikkyou) board thread “[Bad News] Dollar/Yen Closing In on ¥158, Down from ¥152 lolololololol.”
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