News on Next BOJ Chief Pushes Dollar below 130.50 Yen in Tokyo

The Yomiuri Shimbun

16:08 JST, February 11, 2023

TOKYO (Jiji Press) — The dollar plummeted below ¥130.50 in Tokyo trading Friday, hit by selling triggered by a media report on the next Bank of Japan governor.

At 5 p.m., the dollar stood at ¥130.44-44, down from ¥131.14-15 at the same time Thursday. The euro was at $1.0741-0741, up from $1.0734-0734, and at ¥140.11-12, down from ¥140.76-77.

The dollar rose close to ¥131.90 in midmorning trading, aided by buying by Japanese importers and rising U.S. long-term interest rates in premarket trading.

After moving in the upper 131-yen range amid a lack of fresh news, the U.S. currency quickly lost ground in late afternoon trading in the wake of a media report that former BOJ Policy Board member Kazuo Ueda will replace Haruhiko Kuroda, whose tenure as head of the central bank will end in April.

“Investors reacted to the news by tentatively selling the dollar against the yen” after buying the greenback on a report earlier this week that dovish BOJ Deputy Gov. Masayoshi Amamiya had been asked to succeed Kuroda, an official at a foreign exchange margin trading service firm said.

The Amamiya nomination news had raised the view that the BOJ would keep implementing ultraeasy policy. “But we don’t know about who Ueda actually is or his policy stance,” a Japanese securities firm official said.