What a difference eight years make for Japan’s currency.
"Yen Rises for Fifth Day Amid Ukraine Tension,” a Bloomberg News headline exclaimed in March 2014, when Russia was moving in on Crimea. The story noted, "Investors sought haven assets” amid intensifying geopolitical risks.
It was the kind of move seen time and again over the years — a basic tenet of global markets was that when bad things happened, traders piled into the yen. It stemmed from Japan’s status as the world’s largest net creditor. Japan didn’t need anybody else’s money, and it had a whole lot of assets.