Weekend – “Yellen counsels caution on currency intervention after surge in yen”

US Treasury Secretary Yellen spoke over the weekend

• “I’m not going to comment on whether they did or didn’t intervene, I think that that’s a rumour.”
• said the yen “did move quite a bit in a relatively short period of time”
• “we would expect these interventions to be rare and consultation to take place”

Why is the US Tres Sec commenting on the yen? The G7 (of which the US and Japan are a part) have a long-standing agreement among to have the market to determine exchange rates, with intervention by authorities only when it’s aimed at smoothing out volatility, not to influence rates. Yellen reiterated these points in her remarks.

I said back on Friday that the US support for Japan on intervention right now is only lukewarm. Yellen’s remarks confirm this.

Yellen info comes via a (gated) Bloomberg report.