What's up with the value of the YEN?

[Samurai_Jerk]

Euro, yen rally as risk aversion intensifies, Aussie sinks

The euro hit a 6 1/2-month high and the yen hit a 1 1/2-month high against the dollar on Monday as investors dumped risk assets and flocked to currencies often seen as safe havens.

The euro and the yen rose also as investors unwound their short positions.

"Markets are panicking. Things are starting look like the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s. Speculators are selling assets that seem the most vulnerable," said Takako Masai, the head of research at Shinsei Bank in Tokyo.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/23/yen-rall ... sinks.html

[Coligny]

What is this shit... 121y/dollah today
It was 80y/dollah in 2013

It's not exactly a run for the hills, if you look at the 5days trend it appears to go down, the 1 year trend... Nope, really no...

Edit, checked the Dow Jones... Not glorious...

[matsuki]

118, nice!

[kurogane]

Christ, 5 yen up on the CAD in one day!!!???? I might have to stay in hostels next trip. Eeek.

I suppose if the AusD went down too it's the vulnerability of the resource economies. Dood!!!!!!!!

[yanpa]

118, nice!

120, better

[canman]

Of course this happens days after I return from North America! Could have saved a small fortune! Thanks China!

[wuchan]

118, nice!

120, better

73 was the best.

[Coligny]

Of course this happens days after I return from North America! Could have saved a small fortune! Thanks China!

You brought us something ?

[matsuki]

118, nice!

120, better

73 was the best.

Though of course I'm with canman....just flew back last night

[Coligny]

Japanese banks targeted by comuter virus stealing their monies:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/shifu-ba ... 0580.shtml

Tl/dr: ... No really... I didn't read...

[matsuki]

82% of the targets are Japanese banks...I wonder if they had to downgrade to win95 for that feat.

[Russell]

82% of the targets are Japanese banks...I wonder if they had to downgrade to win95 for that feat.

Windows 95 is probably the safest windows version out there, because no virus will run under that environment... (same reason as why a pile of shit can't catch the flu)

[Coligny]

I'm out of snark with microsoft...

Just gratefull I don't need a different autoexec.bat and config.sys for DCS warthog, x-Plane or Prepar3d...
Still have not managed to enable mouse support in Tornado... In the mid 90'...

[legion]

Yen seems to be sneaking up against the GBP

Is the yen going up or the pound down?

[kurogane]

Don't know about sterling but the Cdn $ is down against the yen. Or the yen is up against the Cdn $. I would say the Cdn $ is going down, as things are dire back there.

[Samurai_Jerk]

The USD is down too so the yen must be getting stronger in general.

[legion]

So why ?

Is it just Japanese companies starting to repatriate their dosh from gaikoku?

[wagyl]

So why ?

Is it just Japanese companies starting to repatriate their dosh from gaikoku?

Are you suggesting that nothing the British government or economy does has any effect on the value of GBP? Exchange rates between any two countries are influenced by conditions in both countries (and a lot of speculation). It is never "just" anything.

[legion]

So why ?

Is it just Japanese companies starting to repatriate their dosh from gaikoku?

Are you suggesting that nothing the British government or economy does has any effect on the value of GBP? Exchange rates between any two countries are influenced by conditions in both countries (and a lot of speculation). It is never "just" anything.

quote me

Yen seems to be sneaking up against the GBP

Is the yen going up or the pound down?

That was my point.

The yen is weird, if Japan is the basket case some people say it is the yen should collapse and I should be able to pay off the mortgage with bottle caps and lint from my GBP pockets. As it is the yen keeps drifting up again.

[Wage Slave]

The yen is weird, if Japan is the basket case some people say it is the yen should collapse and I should be able to pay off the mortgage with bottle caps and lint from my GBP pockets. As it is the yen keeps drifting up again.

But Wagyl's point was that exchange rates have nothing much to do with economic realities or government policies. The vast majority of currency trading, probably 90% is purely people speculating against each other. Notice below how little trading is done by non-financial organisations and how popular trading in leveraged instruments is.



http://www.bis.org/publ/qtrpdf/r_qt1312.htm

As for your mortgage - Some of us had to pay upwards of 7% on ours - that's life.

[kurogane]

Yes.

It was explained here a few years back:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_fetishism

Which certainly helps to explain The Economist's current hysteria about Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders. If word gets out they're fecked. Thank god for national lotteries.

PS What are Leveraged Instruments, again? Other than me using a cock ring to get better purchase...............

[legion]

Apparently China has ended the one child policy, pundits say that in order to maintain growth they need workers,
I think they mean in order to maintain expansion they need consumers.

I thought speculators based their bets on assumptions about the strength of a currency in relation to other currencies and economic prospects. Hadn't thought about them betting against each other too.

[matsuki]

Apparently China has ended the one child policy

China...earth's sweatshop

[Samurai_Jerk]

Apparently China has ended the one child policy

China...earth's sweatshop

I thought China's labor was becoming too expensive for that.

[matsuki]

Apparently China has ended the one child policy

China...earth's sweatshop

I thought China's labor was becoming too expensive for that.

It is, that's why they need to make more slave babies.

[Coligny]

Apparently China has ended the one child policy

China...earth's sweatshop

I thought China's labor was becoming too expensive for that.

Check the made in vietnam labels... Won't last long according to Mercobenz and Audi's expansion plans there...

[matsuki]

So it's 119 now...how low will it go? The media machine seems to be in full force, predicting a "shock" of yen strength.

[legion]

Another big jump on the GBP

I wonder if China is causing this.

All the Chinese smart money finding its way to Japan, the one country which has bad enough relations with the Chinese government to prevent too much cooperation on ferreting out dodgy money?

[Russell]

Another big jump on the GBP

I wonder if China is causing this.

All the Chinese smart money finding its way to Japan, the one country which has bad enough relations with the Chinese government to prevent too much cooperation on ferreting out dodgy money?

Capital flight pushes China to the brink of devaluation

China is perilously close to a devaluation crisis as the yuan threatens to break through the floor of its currency basket, despite massive intervention by the central bank to defend the exchange rate.

The country burned through at least $120bn of foreign reserves in December, twice the previous record, the clearest evidence to date that capital outflows have reached systemic proportions.

“There is certainly a sense that the situation is spiraling out of control,” said Mark Williams, from Capital Economics.

Mr Williams said the authorities botched a switch in early December from a dollar currency peg to a trade-weighted exchange basket, accidentally setting off an exodus of money.

[...]

The authorities shut the main exchange after the Shanghai Composite index plunged 7.3pc in less than half an hour, triggering automatic circuit-breakers. The crash wiped out $635bn of market capitalisation in minutes.

It was triggered by a witches’ brew of worries: a fall in China’s PMI composite index for manufacturing and services below the boom-bust line of 50, combined with angst over an avalanche of selling by company insiders as the deadline neared for an end to the share-sales ban imposed last year.

Faced with mayhem, regulators have retreated yet again. They have extended the ban, this time prohibiting shareholders from selling more than 1pc of the total float over a three-month period. The China Securities Regulatory Commission said the move was to “defuse panic emotions”.

The freeze on sales is an admission that the government is now trapped, forced to keep equities on life-support to stop the market crumbling. The commission said its “national team” would keep buying stocks if necessary, doubling down on its frantic buying spree to rescue the market last year.

[...]

Jonathan Anderson, from Emerging Advisors Group in Shanghai, said the latest burst of stimulus – led by an 18pc rise in credit - is clear evidence that Beijing is unwilling to take its medicine and deflate the country’s $27 trillion loan bubble. “The debt ratio is rocketing upwards. China is still adding new leverage at a massive, frenetic pace,” he said.

“The authorities have clearly shown that they have no intention of addressing leverage problems. Our new base case is that the Chinese government will simply let the debt party go on until it eventually collapses under its own weight,” he said.

More

[Samurai_Jerk]

Chinese Curb Tokyo Shopping Binges as Yuan Slides 10% Versus Yen

Chinese tourists tumbling off buses into the Laox duty-free store in Tokyo’s bustling Ginza district say the yuan’s drop against the yen may make them think twice about splurging during their shopping tours.

“Many things are better than China,” said a 27-year-old Beijinger called Wang, who declined to give his full name but was happy to show off his purchases -- a face-massaging tool and electric thermos. “Exchange rates are important,” he said, as the currency market determines what he can afford with his daily shopping budget equivalent to $800.

The number of Chinese visitors to Japan, which peaked at 591,510 in August, fell to 347,100 in December, the least since March, as the yuan weakened about 10 percent against the yen since the end of July. That’s a reversal from the 20 percent surge in the previous 12 months that helped Chinese tourism to Japan more than double in 2015.

Japan is increasingly relying on tourism as businesses cut investment and households curb spending. Visitors from around the world spent 3.4 trillion yen ($28.7 billion) in 2015, about the same as the nation’s annual semiconductor or automobile-part exports, according to the Ministry of Finance. Economists forecast growth of only 1 percent this year and just 0.6 percent in 2017, even as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe enters the fourth year of a premiership focused on ending 20 years of economic stagnation.

‘Shopping Binges’

“The strong yuan has enabled many people to go on shopping binges in Japan even when the Chinese economy has been wobbly," said Daisuke Karakama, chief market economist at Mizuho Bank Ltd. in Tokyo. "The yuan has been fixed at an artificially high level, which hasn’t reflected the country’s economic condition, and the repercussions are now being felt.”