Eisuke Sakakibara, who earned the nickname Mr Yen in his role at the finance ministry in the 1990s, says the climb in USD/JPY may stall near these levels.
“The yen doesn’t appear to be in an alarming situation where it will continue to depreciate out of control,” he told Bloomberg. “The Japanese economy is not that weak, even though the negative impact of the sales-tax increase in April has been somewhat prolonged.”
Sakakibara said that yen weakness above 115 begins to become counterproductive:
“Demerits of yen weakness on the economy start to outweigh merits beyond 115 per dollar,” he said. “Households
hurt by inflation through higher import prices.”
In mid-September, with USD/JPY trading near 107, Sakakibara correctly predicted a rise to 110. In mid-October, however, he predicted the pair wouldn’t rise above 111 and warned of intervention. Now he says that intervention won’t come.
He also predicted a poor election result for Abe, something that will weaken his mandate, weaken monetary easing and cause volatility (likely USD/JPY declines).
