Perception is all.
If the market is buying into lies and spin, that's the way to trade - but it doesn't mean we shouldn't call a spade a spade. Believing it or not, traders bought the yen in droves and triggered two additional rounds of intervention by the Bank of Japan, making it three so far. Today the central banks of France and Germany executed the yen sales on behalf of the BoJ, for both dollars and euros. They say they want a dollar rate of 120, and by golly, they're not going to let speculators ruin their exports. We think the Japanese are playing a clever game.