TOKYO (Reuters) -The Bank of Japan’s money market data showed on Wednesday that Japan likely did not intervene in the currency market a day earlier, as the current account balance was projected to be within market estimates.
The BOJ’s projection for Thursday’s money market conditions showed there will be a 10 billion yen ($67.06 million) surplus, within the range of 0 to 200 billion yen that money brokerages had been expecting, excluding intervention.
After breaching the 150 yen mark in New York trading hours on Tuesday, the dollar fell about 3 yen, fuelling speculation among some that Japanese authorities had intervened to prop up the yen, though most suspected otherwise.
“Looking at the data, there’s a sense that there was probably (no intervention),” one market participant said, declining to be identified because he is not authorised to speak to media.
“That said, the market moved after 11 p.m. Japan time, so we’d have to check the figures for tomorrow too,” he added.
Bank transactions for currency intervention take effect two business days later, meaning any intervention on Tuesday would show up in the BOJ’s current account balance projection for Thursday.
The brokerages’ estimates are made from their calculation of the outstanding balance of excess reserves that financial institutions park at the central bank after accounting for transactions involving private-sector activities such as tax payment and government bond issuance.
The reduction in reserves excluding these is estimated as the amount of yen-buying intervention, which absorbs the currency from excess reserves.
($1 = 149.1200 yen)
(Reporting by Noriyuki Hirata, Shiho Tanaka, Nobuhiro KuboWriting by Chang-Ran Kim; Editing by Sharon Singleton, Kirsten Donovan)
