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Yen weakens past ¥160 per dollar, eroding intervention gains
- shoobiedoo 2mo agoI live in Japan and five years ago my drinking buddy at the time only had USD and was about to get on the shinkansen. He needed Yen ASAP. So he said, "dude I'll trade you a 100USD for 10000YEN." At the time it was an easy fifteen bucks or something profit after exchange, so I said, sure, here ya go. I put it in a drawer and forgot about it until a few weeks ago. I'm going to the moon with this, ladies and gentlemen
- zaik 2mo agoWho charges their buddy 15 USD exchange fees on 100 USD? :(
- rtpg 2mo agoThat's the wrong read. It's more that it's easy to understand. "I will give you a 100 dollar bill, please give me a 10,000 yen bill."
- oniony 2mo agoHe must have been a very itchy man.
- piker 2mo agoDoes seem within the range of “hit me back when I see you next week, buddy” though.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 2mo agoshoobiedoo was now stuck with a locally useless $100 American. So, he was actually given a hassle to resolve of getting it converted back to yen. If the guy was so hot to not lose a dime, he could have said, “Loan me 10k yen right now, I will pay you back ASAP”. If the guy is in Japan with American currency, he likely knows the exchange rate and exactly the terms he was getting.
- shoobiedoo 2mo agoyep. at that time, I would have had to take it to the exchange, with my passport, pay a fee, and barely break even. I really didn't think that needed to be said, but people always come out of the woodwork to convince themselves they are morally superior
- piker 2mo agoNo I wasn't saying that. It's close, but you mentioned something about making money on the trade, so I just added the observation. It's totally dependent on the relationship, really!
- shoobiedoo 2mo agoHe literally put 100USD in front of me, said he forgot to get more yen before his trip, and asked for a favor. Am I really in the wrong from your perspective?
- xattt 2mo agoYes, the move to do was to take a pair of scissors to cut down the 100 dollar bill to fair market value, and give the remainder back to your friend. /s
- itake 2mo agoIf I was in that situation and I’d help my friend not try to make a buck off them when they are down. Between electronic transfer and just settle the debt later, isn’t really an excuse…
- shoobiedoo 2mo agoPlease explain how the situation I described is me "trying to make a buck". You're saying he regretted the terms he presented, and is forever resentful that I didn't drag him to a bank to look up the exchange rate at the time?
- itake 2mo agoThe economic term is "price gauging". You charged a $15usd (~15%) fee when your friend was desperate and willing, when the standard fee for such transactions is at best 0% and worst 5%.
- Groxx 2mo agoIt very much depends on the people and the relationship. Through many years, I've swung a few hundred$+ in either direction with a bunch of people, thousands with a couple. I much prefer zero stress - if money is tight, we just don't do expensive stuff, or steal the bill before they have a chance to pay. Mostly that means we stay cheap until we can safely cover multiple people if needed (running your safety-buffer low enough that you can't do that is a terrible idea anyway).
- N_Lens 2mo agoThis is the kind of handwringing over $100 ethics I come to HN for!
- shoobiedoo 2mo ago[flagged]
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- geysersam 2mo agoIt might have been a gift by his friend. You don't know the details, maybe the friend is more affluent, maybe op had already let him stay in his apartment and given him food and this was the friends covert attempt to even the scale without directly offering money.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- justsomehnguy 2mo agoYou mean the cost of a couple of beers at the end of the day? OP clearly stated the situation was of a mutual benefit - friend got their Y now and don't need to bother with doing an exchange, OP got a few spare bucks which was a such big sum what it literally sat in the drawer for 5 (five) years.
- omoikane 2mo agoIn 2021, USD to JPY exchange rate ranged from ~102 to ~115, and the average was ~109. The actual exchange rate could be a bit less depending on where you make the exchange, so 100 USD to 10000 JPY doesn't seem like that much off. (For example, I noticed that if I buy something from Amazon or try to pay for something using Paypal, the exchange rate they offered me is consistently worse than the market rate if I elect to pay with USD instead of JPY. The difference often adds up to a few dollars, even accounting for foreign transaction fees that my bank might charge.)
- Groxx 2mo agoDiamond hands pays off at last, congrats on the windfall!
- chvid 2mo agoIt used to be the rule of thumb - 1 dollar - 100 yen. I guess it still is - it just went from 1 USD to 1 AUD to now 1 NZD :-D
- shoobiedoo 2mo agoI still do that in my head-- minus two zeros. But nope, not even close now. It was a habit for so long, it's hard to correct...
- timr 2mo agoThe BoJ has to raise rates. Dumping Dollars to buy Yen is spitting in the wind.
- m00dy 2mo agoTGA account has around $1T in it. So, Bessent has enough ammo to defend the castle of Japan.
- timr 2mo agoIt’s pointless. Setting money on fire to avoid the inevitable. Since Bessent did what he did the whole issue has been swallowed up in the idiotic partisan maw of US politics, but it’s just a self-defeating effort by Japan to fight the market.
- charcircuit 2mo agoDo you mean BoJ? JCB is a credit card company. It's expected for the BoJ to raise the rate to 1.25% in 2 weeks.
- timr 2mo agoYes, my bad. I got in the bad habit of referring to it like the ECB. > It's expected for the BoJ to raise the rate to 1.25% in 2 weeks. Cool. Only like four hundred basis points to go!
- missedthecue 2mo agoThey can't afford to. At 4.5% average rates, their interest payments will consume something on the order of 80% of their government budget and huge portions of GDP. Their 30 year paper was trading at 4.1% last week. If the short end of the yield curve pumps even higher, they are utterly screwed. Consequences of 250% debt to gdp.
- timr 2mo agoWell, hopefully they’ve been smarter than the US about managing bond duration, but yeah. Doesn’t change reality in the currency markets, and sometimes you have to choose between the devil and the deep blue sea. The US has the same problem. Maybe less extreme, but the balance sheet has tons of short-term debt, and rates aren’t cooperating.
- tw1984 2mo agoIn 1985, USDJPY was around 250:1, why 160:1 is now a problem? With almost all of its industries no longer in a leading position, with its car industry being demolished by EVs, 250:1 is what it is heading.
- himata4113 2mo agoUSD is falling vs euro so EURJPY is even more bleak. USD in general during those times was way stronger than it is today so those numbers are meaningless.
- hackernud3s 2mo agoI haven't checked USDEUR in years and it's exactly where it was last time.
- weakened_malloc 2mo agoBecause that was 1985, and this is now. Entire supply chains, input costs, planning, etc. have been built around the assumption of the JPY trading in some sort of range. Of course that will change over time, if it hasn't already. The Japanese government's messaging about this has been that they're not really worried about the currency weakening (after all they're massive net exporters! it should be a good thing), but rather the speed at which it's happening.
- afarah1 2mo agoMost large companies hedge their exposition to FX rates.
- reactordev 2mo agoFX futures, but yes.
- weakened_malloc 2mo agoMany don't though, and even if they all did, you can't hedge forever. Hedges are also rolling, so as some hedges expire the companies need to set up new hedges, which are at a worse FX rate. So the hedges lessen the impact but they aren't perfect, otherwise they would not be called 'hedges'.
- chenzhekl 2mo agoUnless Japan raises interest rates or tightens fiscal spending, no amount of intervention will work as long as the structural problems remain.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2mo agoTime to sell some bonds!
- charcircuit 2mo agoThis headline is outdated. It's at 159.82 yen / usd right now.
- alansaber 2mo agoMy spot trading news is invalid unless it uses 1s candles
- charcircuit 2mo agoIt's not invalid. It's outdated. You don't have to look at the candles. You have to look at the current price.
- KellyCriterion 2mo agohaha :-D
- Stevvo 2mo agoFantastic as someone looking for an affordable vacation destination.
- cco 2mo agoDefending currency has to have some quip, right? Something like, "The market can remain honest longer than your central bank can stay solvent"? Always seems to go wrong. Like spraying water on a forest fire with a straw.
- incognition 2mo agoif we all pile in, itll be bank of england redux
- downrightmike 2mo agoCurrent moves have been to implode all currencies, but peg the dollar to petrol, so it floats slightly higher on the pile. The only ways to pay back 120%+ GDP is hyper-inflation or a debt jubilee. Given the South Seas company debt interest is still being paid back, doubt it will be the latter.
- suzuki_yuya 2mo ago[flagged]