Yen

While everyone is staring in disbelief at the USDJPY, the real carry action is in the high yielding-YEN pairs, i.e., the development, high growing countries. And it's a massacre: ZARJPY, NZDJPY, AUDJPY - all are plunging far more than the USD. This is nothing short of a complete carry trade unwind. The implications: the cheapest recurring source of funding for risk assets - the Yen carry trade, is over. Those who managed to sell early on are lucky. The rest will get such an onslaught of margin calls tomorrow they may need to access the discount window (if Primary Dealers and the luckier banks). Many will be forced to sell assets to satisfy collateral requirements as ongoing sales of carry pairs push the Yen ever higher, and force ever more liquidity out of the market. And if the Yen carry trade is done, the question is when will the USD, which has also been a carry currency for some time, follow suit. And, once again, the most troubling observation is that the BOJ has not intervened. Our sinking feeling is that after pumping 50 trillion or so in money markets, the petty cash may be running quite low. In any case, ES opens in 2 minutes. Grab the popcorn now.

Contrary to expectations that the BOJ would injected "only" JPY2 trillion in its emergency operation earlier, Shirikawa came out with a stunner, putting in a whopping 7 trillion yen into Japanese money markets. From Reuters: "The Bank of Japan on Monday injected a hefty 7 trillion yen ($85 billion) into the money market in a same-day market operation aimed at soothing market jitters after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan. This was the central bank's first so-called same-day operation since last May, when the Greek debt crisis roiled the global financial markets. BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Sunday that the central bank would provide huge amounts of liquidity to the banking system on Monday, reinforcing the bank's determination to keep markets stable in the wake of the disaster." In the meantime, after the Nikkei has plunged over 5%, and the Topix down by 7%, circuit breakers have been activated on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Elsewhere, the US plunge protection is hard at work, sending futures surging from the overnight drop, after reality threatened to impose itself. Another masterful showing by Sack Frost.

The massive earthquake and tsunami that has rocked Japan is being digested by markets and the economic ramifications and uncertainty is leading to risk aversion. Tokyo gold futures rose on the news with the most active gold contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, February 2012 inching 0.22% higher to 118,000 yen prior to giving up those gains. Gold is marginally lower in dollars but higher in euros, Swiss francs and British pounds. After the falls on Wall Street yesterday the Nikkei was already under pressure when news of the quake broke at the end of the trading day. The Nikkei fell 1.7% today and is down over 4.11% for the week. The Japanese yen was sold in the immediate aftermath of the quake. Counter-intuitively it then recovered and is the strongest currency in the world today (see table). Market participants appear to be seriously underestimating the risk posed by the megaquake to the Japanese economy and assets. Alternatively, there may have been intervention by the Japanese authorities in order to maintain confidence and protect the value of their currency and bonds. The Bank of Japan, like the Federal Reserve, regularly intervenes in foreign exchange markets and has even intervened in equity markets by buying ETFs linked to the Nikkei and the Topix. Considering the sharp selloff seen in equity markets in recent days, gold’s resilience is impressive. Gold is down nearly 1% for the week and a lower weekly close could see the short term momentum change and a period of correction and consolidation.

The currency with the world’s worst fundamentals is finally making its move. (FXY), (YCS).

Countries used to destroy their neighbors by sending in invading armies of screaming warriors swinging great long swords. Today, you simply buy their currency. Foreign banks are using their balance sheets to speculate in the currency markets and boost profits. Adding fuel to the fire has been efforts by the People’s Bank of China to diversify out of the dollar as a reserve asset by pouring new cash flows into the yen. This explains why the central bank’s intervention efforts to slow the yen’s appreciation have been an abject failure. How this kabuki play will end. (FXY), (YCS).

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of having lunch with hedge fund manager John Paulson. When asked what he anticipated to be the main driver of investment returns over the next few years, he responded without hesitation: “Currencies”. I thought long and hard about that answer and haven’t been able to get the discussion out of my head since. John Paulson’s logic is simple. The world is in the unprecedented situation of all four major trading currencies (EUR, GBP, JPY and USD) facing their unique set of challenges. But not all four can fall at the same time. Currencies are unique in the sense that they are relative as opposed to absolute trading objects. You don’t just buy dollars. You buy dollars against some other currency which is why they can’t all fall at the same time. - Niels Jensen, Absolute Return Partners

On October 31, we highlighted a rapid and dramatic move higher in the JPY crosses, the day after it closed at the all time high against the dollar, which lasted for a few minutes, and which was later sourced to a technical glitch and not to actual BOJ intervention. Perhaps the fact that the half life of the intervention was negligible is why no central bank would ever care to admit it was their doing, especially not the pedantic and results-focused BoJ. The story was promptly buried. Yet as Barclays' Masafumi Yamamoto points out, after digging through BoJ current account source data, there is a conspicuous Y0.6 trillion hole that can not be explained otherwise except by attributing the Halloween JPY spike to a stealth BOJ intervention. If that is indeed the case, it highlights something very troubling: namely that not even $5-6 billion dollar intervention purchases stand a chance of pushing the FX needle much in any direction, if at all. Which is to be expected: after all, the other side of the trade is about to see $1,000 billion in dollar selling courtesy of the Fed, which drowns out any BoJ noise. But what is more worrying is that having seen the disastrous impact of its stealth intervention, the BoJ may be dissuaded from intervening in the FX market any more, as it would be loath to lose any more credibility in the FX markets. Nonetheless, as the USDJPY is about to breach all time low supports once again, it should be obvious to confirm or deny if the BOJ has given up in its attempts to diffuse an armed, strapping and dangerous chairman.

Earlier, the Japanese government approved the BOJ decision to monetize in addition to the traditional JGB securities, also ETFs, REITs, and BBB and higher-rated bonds. In other words, the BOJ is now permitted to do what the Fed will have authority to do with a few months: buy virtually all risk assets, as buying ETFs is the same as buying the general market courtesy of the most traded security in the world, SPY, to push and pull the entire market in whatever direction it goes. There are two questions at this point: is the BOJ allowed to buy foreign (read US) assets that fall under the above buckets, and whether the FX currency swap line recently established with the BOJ will allow the Fed to use Japanese proxies to monetize various US assets. Or will the Fed first seek input from the BOJ on how to proceed with sending the Dow to 36k.

The BOJ has now learned the hard way that these days $20 billion doesn't buy you much: specifically - about 20 days, and a Geoffrey Raymond painting of Ben Bernanke running naked behind the US dollar with a chainsaw and a homicidal grin. The USDJPY is now back to where it was when Shirakawa injected Y2.125 trillion, only to see the impact trickle down to nothing. Considering Monday's BOJ action did nothing to weaken the yen, it is almost certain Shirakawa will pull another $20 billion rabbit out of his hat: this time we expect the impact to last at most half as long as the last time.

Obama said he would be “very interested” in finding ways to lower the corporate tax rate so U.S. companies operating overseas aren’t disadvantaged so MORE FREE MONEY for our Multinational Masters and Bernanke said he refuses to be out-eased by Japan and he's got a whole fleet of helicopters lined up to dump money on our Multinational Masters as well.

Bonus question? What's the prize?

After much speculation and many flying rumors, Japanese government stepped in and intervened--sell yen, buy dollar--for the first time in six years. But the bigger question is whether this would achieve the ultimate goal--pushing export and domestic price levels high enough to help fight deflation--which has plagued the country for a decade.

• Japanese PM wins party vote; will stay in power.
• Asian commodity stocks rise on growth hopes; Japanese shares fall on Yen.
• China's currency advances to a fresh high against the U.S. dollar; CB sets the yuan-dollar parity rate at 6.7378.
• China plans to introduce credit-default swaps by year-end, Official says.
• Euro rises against dollar in morning European trading to $1.2877.
• European industrial production stagnant in July.
• EU raises 2010 growth forecasts; warns growth likely to slow in H2.
• German investor confidence may decline to 18-month low as economy cools.
• Bank of America should repurchase $20B in mortgages, Insurers say.

All eyes are glued at Japan tonight to see who the new DPJ leader will be. As of last check the race was in its photofinish stages, with both Kan and Ozawa having an identical number of supporters. Should Ozawa win, there is an expectation that the new PM would engage in major Yen intervention, and rescue the toothless BoJ from the peanut brittle of its utter worthlessness, and since the volumeless and robotized 2nd derivative of the AUDJPY known as the US stock market trades tick for tick with the JPY, the first indication of Ozawa taking a decisive lead should send the futures limit up at 9Gs. Regardless, even if Kan remains in power, with so much of the fate of the free world dependent on the most irrelevant variable imaginable, here is an outlook on the Yen from Marc Chandler, head of Global FX Strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman, who however sees continued strength for the JPY in the near future, which means that even more stat arbs will explode over the next few weeks as stocks continue to correlate only with the Ambien consumption of one Phillip Hildebrand. "The unwinding of the previous yen carry trade is playing out and although the private sector is purchasing a large amount of foreign assets, roughly the same amount was tried previously (by the BOJ) and, it too, did not work. The stemming of the yen’s appreciation will require greater export of capital from Japan. Short-term speculative capital flows and other flows not picked up in this sketch are difficult to ascertain, leaving it difficult to generate an estimate of the magnitude of capital that needs to be exported from Japan. However, if the will was there, the Japanese government could step in to address the market's failure to sufficiently export Japan’s surplus capital."

The past three days of Risk On market action are all gone and forgotten, as the 250 pips of "BoJ FX intervention" have to be eliminated. As a result the USDJPY is 130 pips tighter compared to 8 hours ago, down to 84.6, and the AUDJPY and futures have followed suit. On the other end of the risk spectrum, the EUR is dropping like a rock, across every currency in the world, is testing 1.27 against the dollar, and is back down to a 1.30 handle vs the CHF. Elsewhere, Bund stops were triggered as the German bond futures hit fresh all time highs. All those who were expecting the rotation out of bonds and into stocks to begin, and bet accordingly, our condolences. Feel free to blame the BoJ.