The Japanese Yen gives up the big figure intervention won back
Japan delivered the inflation and labour data the Bank of Japan needs to move next month and the Japanese Yen is weaker for a fifth consecutive session. Tokyo Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation excluding food and energy reached 2% in August, the headline rate rose to 1.9%, and unemployment fell to 2.4% against a 2.5% forecast. USD/JPY takes the 160.00 handle regardless, at the high of the day. The print the Bank of Japan needed The measure policy actually follows, Tokyo prices excluding fresh food, rose 1.8% against a 1.7% consensus and a 1.7% prior, a third consecutive month of acceleration. Government electricity and gas subsidies, reinstated as the Gulf supply disruption pushed fuel costs higher, will suppress the headline rate through the October data, which makes the 2% reading on the ex-energy measure the honest one. Unemployment at 2.4% is the lowest in a year. Wire reporting through the month has the policy board weighing an increase on September 18 and considering a faster pace than the roughly twice-yearly cadence it has kept since 2024, when it began unwinding a decade of stimulus. Five-year Japanese government bond yields have printed a record high on that speculation, and the June move took the
