JPY: Likely that Japan pulled the trigger on intervention There are strong indications – but still no officiality – that Japanese authorities intervened in the FX market this morning. USD/JPY touched 160.0 at around 02.30am BST and immediately faced two drops: a smaller one to 159.40, and then at 05.00am BST initiated a big fall to 155.00 (nearly a -3% move). It is now trading around 1.4% off the lows, at 157.00. Japanese top currency official Masato Kanda replied, “No comment for now,” when questioned about whether he had deployed FX intervention this morning. However, these moves have all the standard characteristics of currency intervention: the “line in the sand” at 160.0, the sharp increase in volume and the size of the move. In this last aspect, the JPY spike may have been exacerbated by thinner liquidity conditions on a Monday morning which is also a Japanese public holiday.