It may be the surprise of seeing prices at home go up for the first time in decades, but a split seems to be forming between a growing number of bearish yen watchers in Tokyo and their more positive foreign counterparts.
Having fallen to a 24-year low, strategists are debating whether one of the year’s hottest macro trades — sell the yen — is overdone. Those in Japan suggest there’s still plenty of time to pile on shorts. Not so, according to analysts from Sydney to Geneva who say time is nearly up on the trade as the yen slips further toward the key psychological level of ¥140 per dollar.
The path of the yen is being closely-watched by markets, with bets on a further decline increasingly seen as the most stretched macro trade, according to a recent Bank of America survey of fund managers. Japan’s interest-rate gap with the rest of the world, higher oil prices in the import-dependent nation and the resurgent greenback have already pushed the currency 17% lower for the year — the worst performer among Group of 10 peers.
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