USD/JPY Tumbles Below ¥156 as Record-Breaking Intervention Hits Markets

The yen jumped to nearly ¥156 against the US dollar after payrolls dropped by 23,000 in July, contrary to an expected gain of 80,000. This sent USD/JPY plummeting by 1.02% and breaking below its previous low of ¥158.43.

The intervention was a coordinated effort between Japan's Ministry of Finance and the US Federal Reserve, with Tokyo spending a record ¥8.45 trillion in a single day on Thursday, followed by another ¥5.33 trillion on Friday. This amounts to approximately ¥13.78 trillion ($87 billion) deployed across two consecutive sessions.

The scale of this operation is unprecedented, with previous defence operations running in the ¥6 trillion range over multi-day episodes.