Did the Japanese just get the tap on the shoulder from The Fed? Cabinet Office member and Special Advisor to Abe Koichi Hamada just jawboned the JPY higher (and USDJPY lower) with the following statement:
- HAMADA: YEN AT 105/USD APPROPRIATE; WEAK AT 120 CONSIDERING PURCHASING PARITY
The reaction - an 80 pip plunge in USDJPY.
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Who is Koichi Hamada? Abe's Secret Weapon... [4]
Hamada first met Abe while serving as a senior adviser for the Japanese government’s Economic Planning Agency from 1998 to 2001. Abe was a deputy cabinet secretary, first under Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori and then for Mori’s successor, Junichiro Koizumi, and he was responsible for coordinating meetings with Hamada’s agency.
The two kept in touch and when Abe made a bid for prime minister in the fall of 2012, “our paths suddenly joined together” again, Hamada says.
Hamada has since become one of Abe’s most trusted economic advisers, even from his base thousands of miles away in Connecticut.
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