Yen /méga intervention des banques centrales occidentales

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-18/g-7-intervenes-to-weaken-yen-as-surging-currency-threatens-quake-recovery.html

Western central banks join Japan's in rigging yen market


Submitted by cpowell on Fri, 2011-03-18 00:59. Section: Daily Dispatches
Central Banks Intervene to Weaken Yen After Post-Quake Surge
By Keith Jenkins and Yoshiaki Nohara
Bloomberg News
Thursday, March 17, 2011

Central banks intervened in currency markets to weaken the yen after it soared to the strongest against the dollar since World War II, threatening Japan's recovery from its worst earthquake on record.
"In response to recent movements in the exchange rate of the yen associated with the tragic events in Japan, and at the request of the Japanese authorities, the authorities of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and the European Central Bank will join with Japan, on March 18, 2011, in concerted intervention in exchange markets," the Group of Seven said today in a statement.
The yen depreciated 2.9 percent to 81.32 per dollar as of 9:25 a.m. in Tokyo from 78.89 yesterday in New York, when it reached a record 76.25 as increased risk of radiation leaks from a crippled nuclear power station boosted speculation Japanese investors will bring home overseas assets.


The combined sales are an attempt to limit the damage a strong Japanese currency will have on the nation's economy in the aftermath of the magnitude 9 earthquake that struck on March 11. Japan unilaterally sold more than 2 trillion yen ($26 billion) in foreign-exchange markets in September to stem gains, its first intervention since 2004.
The intervention started at 9 a.m. Tokyo time and followed a Group of Seven industrialized nations conference call to discuss the impact of the March 11 earthquake in Japan, Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda told reporters after the call. Each country will intervene when its markets open, Noda said.
"Foreign-exchange markets are convinced that when the main central banks act together, that has to be taken very seriously," said Paul Robson, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London. "The last thing Japan needs is a sharply stronger exchange rate. They don't want the global financial system to be weakened by sharp moves in the yen exchange rate."
The yen typically climbs during crises because Japan's current-account surplus means it doesn't need foreign funding and because of the likelihood Japanese investors will repatriate assets. Japan holds $885.9 billion of Treasuries, the highest tally after China, according to the U.S. Treasury.
The currency reached its previous postwar high of 79.75 per dollar three months after Japan's magnitude 6.9 Kobe earthquake in January 1995, which killed about 6,400 people, on speculation that bilateral talks to open up Japan's auto market to U.S. exports would fail. Japan sold a total of 1.8 trillion yen in February and March that year as the yen rose 10 percent.
There have been more than 530 aftershocks since the March 11 temblor near the city of Sendai that left at least 5,457 people dead, with more than 9,500 missing and hundreds of thousands stranded and without power. Prime Minister Naoto Kan called for calm as he dispatched 100,000 troops to the northeastern region.
The tsunami and concern of a meltdown at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant has forced more than 450,000 people from their homes.
Japan's success in reversing the yen’s gains on its own last year proved transitory. While it slumped 3.3 percent to 85.75 against the dollar on Sept. 15, the day of the intervention, the currency had strengthened to 80.22 by Nov. 1 as the Fed announced a second round of so-called quantitative easing to purchase $600 billion of Treasuries. The U.S. is Japan's second-biggest trading partner.
"Japan had come in for some heat from overseas authorities for intervening before, but it's becoming more acceptable to take action now, given that the move is designed to limit the damage a strong yen will have on the economy in the wake of the earthquake," Takahide Kiuchi, chief economist at Nomura Securities Co. in Tokyo, said before the announcement.
Japan’s success in reversing the yen's gains on its own last year proved transitory. While it slumped 3.3 percent to 85.75 against the dollar on Sept. 15, the day of the intervention, the currency had strengthened to 80.22 by Nov. 1, before the Fed announced a second round of so-called quantitative easing to purchase $600 billion of Treasuries.

www.lemetropolecafe.com



Mar 18, 9:32 AM EDT
NY Fed confirms intervention in currency markets

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The New York Federal Reserve Bank confirmed that it intervened in currency markets on Friday for the first time in more than a decade.
The disclosure came a day after the Group of Seven major industrialized nations pledged in a statement to join in a coordinated effort to weaken the Japanese yen. The yen has surged in the last week to post-war record levels following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
A spokesman at the New York Fed, which operates as the agent of the U.S. Treasury in currency operations, confirmed that it had intervened. The last time the U.S. government intervened in currency markets was the fall of 2000 when it sold dollars and bought euros to bolster the fledgling European currency.
The spokesman refused to provide any details on the amounts of the intervention or what currencies were involved.
A stronger yen threatened to deal another blow to the fragile Japanese economy by depressing the country's exports.
-END-
How ECB currency intervention works
FRANKFURT, March 18 (Reuters) - The European Central Bank has intervened alongside Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom and others to calm volatile foreign exchange markets in the wake of Japan's catastrophic earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disasters.
Below is a factbox on how ECB currency interventions work and details of the central bank's previous interventions.
HOW IT INTERVENES
*The ECB can intervene in the foreign exchange markets without prior authority from euro zone or EU finance ministers. It can conduct sales or purchases of foreign exchange itself, or instruct national central banks that manage ECB reserves to conduct transactions on its behalf, or ask the same of foreign central banks with which it holds accounts.
* The ECB also can instruct the national central banks to transfer their own foreign exchange assets to the ECB, in exchange for an interest-bearing claim. This would increase the ECB's fire power about four-fold, but it has never used this authority.
* The ECB can fund foreign exchange interventions not only with its reserves but by other means, such as foreign exchange swaps, and swaps with other central banks.
* The ECB can fire its biggest cannon by coordinating its foreign exchange intervention with other major central banks. In September 2000, it initiated a plan where the U.S. Federal Reserve and Bank of Japan joined it in buying euros to stem the single currency's sharp slide.
The action was followed by three waves of unilateral ECB intervention in November and succeeded in putting a floor under the euro at 82 cents. There had been no interventions since until Friday's move.
INTERVENTION POWERS
* The European Central Bank must conduct its foreign exchange operations within the framework of its primary objective, maintaining price stability. This means that if changes in the euro's value threaten inflationary or deflationary pressures, the ECB can intervene in the foreign exchange markets if price stability is at risk.
*European Union finance ministers have the authority to reach agreements on an exchange rate system for the euro, and can give general directions for exchange rate policy. The ECB can provide them with advice on these matters. The European Council of EU leaders agreed that it would exercise these powers in exceptional circumstances and without threatening the independence of the Eurosystem -- the ECB and national central banks.
In practice, EU finance ministers have never used these powers, leaving decisions on the euro and exchange rate policy up to the ECB.
* The ECB has a strong incentive to consult with finance ministers and keep them abreast of its thinking and any foreign exchange policy plans, because ministers have the authority to give currency direction. The monthly Eurogroup meeting of euro zone finance ministers and the ECB president is the usual forum for these discussions.
FX RESERVES
* There was a total of 185 billion euros in foreign exchange reserves in the European System of Central Banks (ESCB) as of the end of last week. ECB does not specify currency composition of its reserves, but traditionally they are held substantially in dollars.
* National central banks are required to contribute to the ECB reserves when they join the Eurosystem, based on a formula.
* The ECB manages its foreign exchange reserves to generate some income but it keeps them in highly liquid instruments. Some of the reserves are managed on its behalf by the national central banks. The ECB also has reserve accounts with other central banks, such as the Bank of Japan and the Federal Reserve.

depuis la crise des subprimes de 2008 , le yen s'est apprécié de 40% par rapport au $, et avait ateint son plus haut historique vs $ depuis 35 ans

lire absolument l'article complet de Norcini sur yen, $ et comodity index ( CCI)

http://traderdannorcini.blogspot.com/2011/03/when-theory-and-real-life-collide.html

à priori, la vague de ventes des matières 1eres, et de nos métaux précieux, devrait se calmer, avec la correction du yen, qui s'amorce

Rien que la banque du Japon en est déjà à 700 millards de dollars en quelques jours et encore la cata est loin d'être terminée... http://www.zerohedge.com/article/%C2%A555600000000000

Si on additionne les "interventions" de toutes les banques centrales ça s'appellerait pas un super MEGA QE3 ?