USD/JPY closed Monday at 163.61, less than 40 pips from the April spike high of 163.98, and the fingerprints of an overextended trade are everywhere. The evidence file Positioning data shows speculative yen shorts at their most extreme since the 2024 carry blowup. Options markets show investors paying up for yen crash protection — a […]
163.61. That’s where USD/JPY closed Friday, and the round number just above it — 164 — is one of the most politically sensitive levels in all of FX. Every trader on the planet knows it. So does the Japanese Ministry of Finance. The setup as it stands The pair has risen 100 yen since April, […]
USD/JPY at 161 has made “the carry trade” the most cited and least understood phrase in finance. Let’s fix that in five minutes. The mechanics A carry trade borrows money where interest rates are low and invests it where rates are high. Japan’s rates sit near zero; America’s are meaningfully higher. So a fund borrows […]
The yen’s June reprieve lasted exactly two weeks. USD/JPY closed Monday at 162.51, up from 161.88 last week, with the pair touching 162.58 — the highest since the April spike. The sellers who showed up at the end of June have been absorbed, and the carry community has taken that as its cue to reload. […]
162.6. That’s where USD/JPY closed on Wednesday, and I had to double-check the screen because the last time we were here, the conversation was all about intervention. The pair has rallied almost without pause since mid-June, climbing from 159.6 to its highest level of 2026. The engine is the same one that’s driven every big […]