Seems like the Japanese officials are drawing a line at 159.00 on USD/JPY. That's also where we got an intensification of verbal intervention last week that helped to ease the pressure on the Japanese Yen.
The pair fell from 159.22 to 157.32 in a matter of seconds. Looks like an intervention but some are saying that it could be a "rate check" because an intervention would have had a bigger impact. Whatever that was, it has caught market attention and acted as a warning for the JPY bears.
The JPY started to roll over again this morning following the BoJ decision where the central bank kept interest rates unchanged and slightly upgraded its growth and inflation forecasts.
We saw more bearish pressure on the yen during Governor Ueda press conference where he didn't sound as hawkish as the market expected given the weak yen.
As mentioned many times before, interventions can help ease some pressure on the currency in the near-term but they don't change the trend. As long as the fundamentals remain against the currency, the market will keep on selling it. The BoJ needs to step up its "policy normalisation" and turn more hawkish to reverse the trend.
