Yen rallies: CPI short squeeze or intervention?

Did they or didn’t they? The yen surged across the board on Thursday in what may have been a perfectly timed round of Japanese intervention upon the release of a tame US inflation report that sent Treasury yields and the dollar lower.

While analysts did not rule out intervention, they said forex players could have been caught wrong-footed on short yen positions. But local Japanese television cited government sources as saying official intervention did occur and, while Jiji said Japan’s currency boss Masato Kanda could not comment yes or no, the news service did quote him saying recent yen moves were not in line with fundamentals.

Either way, the yen jumped more than 2% at one point against the greenback and the euro moments after news that US consumer prices fell for the first time in four years, which bolstered the case for a circumspect Fed to lower interest rates in September.

The 0.1% CPI drop from May to June smacks of an important dovish watershed for data-dependent Fed policymakers. Friday brings the US Producer Price Index as potential confirmation, bits of which feed into the Fed’s favorite inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures prices index.

Futures traders raised the odds of a Fed easing in September to 85% from 70% before the report and added to bets for a second cut in December.

While Wall Street took the S&P 500 and Nasdaq to another set of intraday records after the open, a plunge in Treasury yields, was not enough to keep the rally going. Only the Dow closed in the green.

Taiwan Semiconductor needs to carry the baton for the chips sector, and growth stocks in general, after rotation out of Nvidia, Apple, and Tesla took the froth out of US markets.

Many Asia bourses have their own momentum. No one would rule out the Nikkei taking a breather from its record-setting streak. MSCI’s Asia ex-Japan stock index rose 1.4% on Thursday.

Beijing’s quinquennial Party plenum looms next week as a source of signals for China’s markets. Meanwhile, fresh curbs on short selling could mean another day of positive vibes for the Shanghai Composite index after it’s 1.06% gain Thursday. Likewise for the blue-chip CSI300 index.

Dollar/yen was down 1.8% at 158.79 in late US trade. The euro rose 0.34%.

The yuan strengthened against the falling dollar and was last at 7.2582 per dollar.

Here are key developments that could provide more direction to markets on Friday:

– Malaysia industrial output (May)

– Japan industrial output (May)

– US Producer Price Index (June)

– JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup earnings (Q2)

(Compiled by the Global Finance & Markets Breaking News team; Editing by Josie Kao)