Tag - currencies

 
 

CURRENCIES

A monitor in Tokyo shows the yen weakening past ¥150 per dollar late Tuesday night.
BUSINESS / Markets
Feb 14, 2024
Yen's slide past ¥150 per dollar prompts stern warnings from Japan
The yen has tumbled more than 6% versus the dollar so far in 2024.
The “myahk,” a community currency implemented on Okinawa Prefecture’s Miyako Island in 2018, is intimately tied to local efforts for environmental preservation.
LIFE / Lifestyle / Longform
Feb 10, 2024
Japanese communities are creating currencies to educate and empower citizens
The yen will do when paying for things throughout the country. In some places, though, you may try paying with a coin that also helps reduce plastic waste.
The risks are particularly evident in Asia, home to some of the world’s worst-performing major currencies against the greenback.
BUSINESS / Economy
Jan 19, 2024
Dollar dominance is triggering intervention fears across markets
The greenback's recent spike is a reality check to investors betting on dollar weakness and for the authorities hoping for a respite.
Who should foot the bill when it comes to making sure Japan's new ¥500 coin can actually be used as widely as the old one?
COMMUNITY / Voices / FOREIGN AGENDA
Jan 15, 2024
All ¥500 coins that glitter are not gold
Twenty years on and the ¥2,000 note can almost certainly still be described as a “novelty" — what if the new ¥500 coin is destined for the same fate?
The yen's exchange rate against the dollar on Wednesday. The yen declined from ¥103 against the dollar in 2020 to as little as ¥151 in late 2023.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Jan 11, 2024
Is a weak yen good for Japan’s economy?
The yen's fast depreciation is boosting overseas investment and sectors like tourism, but could also trigger inflation. In response, the BOJ should raise interest rates.
The Bank of Japan's headquarters in Tokyo. In 2023, the dollar surged from around ¥130 at the start of the year to above ¥151.90 in mid-November as the gap between U.S. and Japanese interest rates widened on the back of the U.S. Federal Reserve's rapid rate hikes to curb inflation.
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 30, 2023
Dollar could fall to around ¥130 in 2024, analysts say
Six of eight analysts predict that the lower end of the greenback's range against the yen next year will be between ¥130 and ¥135.
After being whipsawed by false starts calling for the end of the Fed’s rate hiking regime, a Bloomberg gauge of the greenback is down nearly 3% since January in the steepest annual drop for the U.S. currency since 2020.
BUSINESS / Economy
Dec 29, 2023
U.S. dollar is set for worst year since 2020
The dollar’s fall stands in contrast to the pound, which is set for its best year since 2017.
The yuan's stealthy climb in global payments could see it pose a challenge to the U.S. dollar's dominance.
COMMENTARY / World
Dec 25, 2023
The yuan is finally showing some muscle in international trade
The yuan's stealthy climb in global payments could see it pose a challenge to the U.S. dollar's dominance.
Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda, who took office in April, has been considered a skeptic of negative interest rates.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Dec 17, 2023
One small step for BOJ. One giant leap for the yen.
Japan can hold off on undoing negative interest rates
Members of an experts' panel on a central bank digital currency hold their first meeting, at the Finance Ministry in April.
BUSINESS
Dec 13, 2023
Panel urges preparations for a digital yen that coexists with cash
The Bank of Japan has launched a pilot program to study the feasibility of implementing such a currency.
Milei won Argentina’s presidency last month by wielding a roaring chainsaw on the campaign trail to symbolize the slashing he planned for the nation’s government.
WORLD / Politics
Dec 13, 2023
Argentina’s new ‘anarcho-capitalist’ president starts slashing
Javier Milei unveiled deep spending cuts and a sharp devaluation of the peso days after taking office, forewarning the nation of the economic pain ahead.
Samples of new Japanese banknotes scheduled to be issued from July 3, 2024
JAPAN
Dec 12, 2023
Japan to issue redesigned banknotes on July 3
Even after the new bills begin circulating, the current banknotes will remain legal tender.
A monitor at a foreign exchange transaction firm in Tokyo shows the yen strengthening to ¥141 to the dollar early Friday. Comments from BOJ Gov. Kazuo Ueda on Thursday, along with remarks from one of his deputies on Wednesday, jolted financial markets in Tokyo and globally.
BUSINESS / Markets
Dec 8, 2023
Yen extends rally to second day as traders bet on early BOJ hike
The rally in the yen spilled over into a second day as traders wagered that the Bank of Japan will scrap the world’s last negative interest-rate regime much sooner than previously thought.
An illegal money changer checks old U.S. dollars at a marketplace in Harare, Zimbabwe.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 24, 2023
As Argentina eyes dollarization, Zimbabwe and Ecuador offer clues
Adopting the greenback in place of the local currency might bring stability, but it is not without its pains.
Pacific Investment Management headquarters in Newport Beach, California. The bond giant says it has started building a long yen position.
BUSINESS
Nov 20, 2023
Pimco is buying yen to prepare for tighter BOJ monetary policy
The bond giant started building a long yen position when Japan’s currency weakened past ¥140 per dollar a few months ago.
People pass an electronic board showing the rate of the yen against the dollar on a street in Tokyo on Wednesday.
BUSINESS
Nov 15, 2023
Former currency czar sees structural factors behind yen weakness
"I wonder whether overseas investors may be thinking what's in it for investing in Japan," said Rintaro Tamaki.
A monitor in Tokyo shows the yen weakening below ¥151 to the dollar on Wednesday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Nov 1, 2023
Japan ramps up yen intervention warning after BOJ-fueled sell-off
The broad decline toward ¥152 to the dollar has the currency around the threshold that a year ago drove Japanese authorities to swoop in to prop it up.
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki (front right) arrives for a news conference during the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, in Marrakech, Morocco, on Friday.
BUSINESS / Economy
Oct 14, 2023
Japan tells G20 it may need to act in FX market
Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki's remarks came as the yen renewed its declines against the dollar.
Russian President Vladimir Putin delivers his remarks during the 2023 BRICS Summit in Johannesburg on Thursday.
EDITORIALS
Aug 26, 2023
Bigger isn’t necessarily better for the future of BRICS
Shared grievances may bind them, but they are not enough to fuel concerted action to challenge the dominace of the West.
While the U.S. today accounts for only 25% of global economic output, the dollar remains involved in nearly 90% of all foreign-exchange transactions.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 18, 2023
The real cost of de-dollarization
While there are currently no viable alternatives that could usurp the greenback, the biggest threat to its hegemony comes from the US government itself.

Longform

A statue of "Dragon Ball" character Goku stands outside the offices of Bandai Namco in Tokyo. The figure is now as recognizable as such characters as Mickey Mouse and Spider-Man.
Akira Toriyama's gift to the world