The yen’s rapid strengthening against the dollar this week had all the signatures of intervention except speed, leaving some analysts to conclude that neither Japan nor the United States had stepped in to prop up the currency.
“If you look at the overall scale of swing alone, it appears comparable to that of an intervention, but I believe it was not,” said Soichiro Tateishi, an economist at the Japan Research Institute.
Official intervention usually triggers a rapid move in a matter of minutes, but the pace of the yen’s gain has been far more gradual, he said.
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