Yen

A home run begging to get smashed out of the park. Support is falling away like a dress off a prom date. Puts are still ridiculously cheap. The global carry trade is back on. The Japanese government absolutely hates the yen at this level. Exporters are getting killed. Moving Mount Fuji to get what it wants. The world’s credit sharks are looking for a new victim. Final target: ¥150. (YCS)

According to the CFTC's Commitment of Traders report, non-commercial speculative shorts in the Euro declined for the week ended March 2, and for the first time in over two months, tracking the move of the EUR higher over the past week. Total net positions declined from -71,623 to -66,770, or a net long increase of 4,853. This is still the second highest net short exposure in over two years.

On the other side, a stunning push in Yen long exposure increased the net long Yen positions from 1,717 in the prior week to a whopping 32,552. The next question: will Japan promptly ask all these speculators to performSeppuku after they have done all they can to make the Yen more expensive, thus laying Japan's best laid plans to stimulate inflation to waste.

The third most relevant currency, the British Pound, saw a net short increase, with net short Non-commercial contracts increasing from -64,647 to -67,549.

After several weeks of driftless correlation between stocks and the DXY, stocks are once again correlating almost perfectly with the critical EUR-JPY pair. Due to the acute impact on the DXY via the EUR-JPY, this is the easiest way to push around the DXY levels. Furthermore, the correlation return could be indicative that the JPY is once again the carry currency of choice. Couple this with a weakness in the short-end of the UST curve, and one can speculate that carry traders are quietly repurchashing dollar shorts and selling Bill positions, meaning that the Yen will likely be seeing rather substantial weakness in the coming weeks.

Trying to read between the lines of BOJ doctrine, even as the Yen continues rising contrary to what the economic data out of Japan time and time again suggests it should be doing, Morgan Stanley is out with a report that attempts to quantify the probability of a Yen intervention. And even though there has been no official instances of intervention since 2004, MS feels that "increased JPY strength from current levels is increasingly likely to trigger official FX intervention." As this relates to the economy caught in the biggest deflationary vise in the last two decades this does not surprise us very much.

The Japanese posturing worked: with the yen hitting a 14 year high against the dollar, inside of 85, one short week ago, in the past 5 days the Yen staged a huge drop against the US currency, plunging by the most in over a decade, to 90.5 as of Friday close. While we are not sure what Hirohisa Fujii told Bernanke on the closed line in the past week, we do owe the boys at 33 Liberty a golf clap for managing the carry roll from the dollar to the yen with such efficacy that the stock market did not plunge. It appears the $ Plunge Enforcement Desk and the S&P Plunge Protection Desk have reached a phenomenal level of synergies.

I have been bullish on the Japanese currency since March 2007. What I think defines broad movement in currencies is perception along with broad relative monetary actions. The expansion or contraction of monetary aggregates in one currency versus another is in essence its purest denominator. We show today such a timing model in the yen/usd rate of exchange. Notice that timing simply based on monetary aggregates can be not forgiving for quite some time until the new trend establishes itself.

The chicken or the egg problem revisited, as the market stages an amazing if all too expected comeback: the last thing US consumers need at the start of the all too critical holiday shopping season is their 401(k)'s down by 2%. Yen is getting pounded as all "strong" currencies stage an impressive intraday rally: those rate hikes at the ECB are getting so priced in, Greece default be damned.

The $ PET (Plunge Enforcement Team) will have its work cut out for it tonight and tomorrow, after speculation was rampant that both Japan and Switzerland would intervene in their respective currency markets to halt the dollar's collapse, in essence making Tim Geithner's self-proclaimed job of maintaining a strong dollar that much easier. And even as the Nikkei has terminally decoupled from the US equity market, and is now over 10% down from its 2009 highs, the yen just passed 85, hitting a 14 year high against the dollar and throwing Japan's export economy into a tailspin: that a confirmed deflationary economy is considered a "safe-haven" in today's world should be sufficient to get Keynes boogying to the foxtrot in his grave as his economic gospel falls apart at the seams.

While the logic of how a US economy equates to a weaker dollar escapes those who think before pushing buttons and chasing trends, a glance at intraday currency performance indicate a substantial divergence in then Yen relative to the global "short-dollar" complex. Even as the euro, cable and OZ are powering higher, the yen has been caught in a weak zone, and has been declining all day long despite a stronger than expected US economy (yes, it does make sense...but don't think about it too hard). The oddity in the FX market is compounded when juxtaposed with Japan CDS levels: as of several minutes ago, Japan CDS was trading around 63 (white line on the chart below): a level last seen in April. This begs the question: what does someone know about Japan, and will this weakness translate into weaknesses for other non-US currencies?

The dollar pain continues as the dollar drops below the 90 Yen support level. Surprisingly despite the dollar weakness, there is no capital flow into domestic risky assets (10 Years are well bid). In fact, the bid in HY, the latest risk casualty of bubble psychology, is weakening. Is the carry trade now financing safer/foreign assets? If so, is yield chasing finally over?

The Yen-Euro trade just took a sharp turn lower, pushing the DXY higher. Stocks, as usual, are caught in a vortex of vacuum tubes and chasing the VXV in a circular logic argument. Give them some time to catch up.

A quick look at the USDJPY chart shows that most of the gains due to second derivative unemployment numbers have been wiped out.

The recent fall in the dollar and yen are yet another indicator of investors moving to risk assets. What does this mean for further dollar/yen weakness?

As Zero Hedge has noted before, we think the market was underestimating the severity of the crisis in Japan. As we looked at the numbers, we couldn't help but think that some were being a little optimistic in light of the macro factors at play. At month end, the market reacted sharply to almost consistently bad news coming out from Japan; unemployment, production, retail and the Tankan indices all came out below expectations.

As Zero Hedge has noted before, we think the market was underestimating the severity of the crisis in Japan. As we looked at the numbers, we couldn't help but think that some were being a little optimistic in light of the macro factors at play. At month end, the market reacted sharply to almost consistently bad news coming out from Japan; unemployment, production, retail and the Tankan indices all came out below expectations.