With the USDJPY crashing to a fresh 17 month low, sending the Nikkei down 2.3% and taking out levels during which we have seen direct BOJ intervention in both February and March, many were wondering how a panicking Japan would try to push its currency lower. The answer was revealed moments ago, with the following Reuters headlines:
Back in the summer of 2014, when the ECB first unveiled NIRP, many were concerned that this submersion into the monetary policy twilight zone would first crush Europe's money markets. However, at least until now, European MM funds have proven relatively resilient,
The story in Japan is different.
When the Bank of Japan announced they were instituting NIRP back in January, they intended to spur lending and push inflation up. As often is the case with central planners, their academic theory was much different than the economic reality.
You know you have 'tinkered' too much in the machincations of what dealers now call a "dead market" when the world's largest sovereign bond market is inverted at the short-end and the long-end. The utter folly of Peter Pan policy has sent 10Y JGB yields below the BoJ's overnight call rate for the first time ever...
It may be option expiration day (always leading to abnormal market activity) but it remains all about the weak dollar, which after crashing in the two days after the Fed's surprisingly dovish statement has put both the ECB and the BOJ in the very awkward position that shortly after both banks have drastically eased, the Euro and the Yen are now trading stronger relative to the dollar versus prior.
According to sources, Reuters reports that The Bank of Japan is asking market-participants about the cause of this morning's sudden 150 pip vertical rip in USDJPY. Hhmmm, we wonder? Given BoJ's "coincident" intervention in mid-Feb (marking the market bottom), we wonder who this mysterious knife-catcher is?