The yen on Tuesday plunged to its lowest level against the US dollar since August 1998 as leveraged funds in Europe and the US resumed bets that the Bank of Japan’s ultra loose monetary policy would continue.
After a comparatively calm morning, the yen began to drop sharply in the afternoon, plunging to a new 24-year low of ¥142 per dollar.
Traders in Tokyo said the trigger for the yen’s breakout was the Reserve Bank of Australia’s announcement of a half-percentage-point increase in interest rates and the accompanying signal that the central bank was still not finished with its monetary tightening cycle.
Japan has continued to defy the tightening trend among central banks, and speculative investors guessed that the European Central Bank was now more likely to raise interest rates further on Thursday. This prompted a sell-off in US Treasuries and added to the narrative of the Bank of Japan’s increasing policy divergence…