Next Bank of Japan intervention might be to sell currency

Cautious policy: People passing by the BoJ headquarters. Tokyo may be wary of raising interest rates again for fear of upending the stock market as occurred earlier this month. — AFP

IF Japan’s government is thinking ahead, it may be planning to rein in its errant yen rather than propping it up.

A two-year, cat-and-mouse game between speculators and Japan’s authorities – involving mounting bets against the yen on yawning interest rate gaps with other Group of Seven (G7) economies – ended this month with the cat licking its lips, even while suffering some indigestion.