Thai Floods and Yen Appreciation

Given the poor track record of intervention, unilateral or multilateral, sterilized or unsterilized, there may be no compelling need to understand why the $100 bln intervention is not sticking. All sorts of possible explanations seem partly at play. Intervention has not been repeated. The failure to push the greenback above JPY80 lent bullish yen safe haven views intact. Spot intervention is less effective than repeated operations in the swaps and options market too, as the SNB is thought to have done.

In any event, another force may be at work and that is the floods in Thailand. They have hit the Japanese auto sector hard as Thailand is an important production base. Other industries have also been hit as reports by Hitachi and Canon indicate