Dollar Hits 9-Month Highs above 146.50 Yen in Tokyo

Jiji Press

19:58 JST, August 17, 2023

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The dollar hit nine-month highs above ¥146.50 briefly in Tokyo trading Thursday before shedding some of the gain to drift below that mark later in the day.

At 5 p.m., the dollar stood at ¥146.22-22, still up from ¥145.37-37 at the same time Wednesday. The euro was at $1.0879-0880, down from $1.0922-0923, and at ¥159.08-09, up from ¥158.79-79.

The dollar rose above ¥146.50 in the morning for the first time since November 2022, after topping ¥146.00 in overnight foreign trading chiefly on the back of speculation that the U.S. Federal Reserve might raise interest rates further to tame inflation.

After losing some steam on selling by Japanese exporters, the dollar became almost static around ¥146.40 in the absence of fresh factors.

The U.S. currency inched down below ¥146.30 in late trading, weighed down by worries over possible yen-buying, dollar-selling market intervention by Japanese authorities and a fall in long-term U.S. Treasury bond yields in off-hours trading.

Players are likely to remain jittery over remarks from Japanese government officials for the time being, market sources said.

“The market attention is now on when Japanese authorities will step into the market,” a Japanese securities firm official said.