Market News

By Carter Johnson and Anya Andrianova

(Bloomberg) -- The yen surged more than 1% against the dollar Wednesday as fresh signs of a cooling US labor market bolstered the case for the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates more aggressively in the coming months.

The Japanese currency traded at the day’s high of 143.76 per dollar late in the New York session, the strongest mark in a week. The move brings the yen’s gains over the last two days to more than 2% and came after a key segment of the US yield curve — the spread between 10- and two-year notes - briefly disinverted for only the second time since 2022 as Fed easing bets gained steam.

Treasury yields tumbled across the curve Wednesday, led by policy-sensitive shorter maturities, after a report showed that US jobs openings in July were the lowest since the beginning of 2021. A Bloomberg gauge of the dollar saw its largest daily drop in more than a week. 

“Weaker US data and expectation of more and quicker cuts by the Fed, coupled with more hawkish comments from the Bank of Japan, are driving the yen today,” said Nathan Thooft, a senior portfolio manager at Manulife Investment Management in Boston.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda on Tuesday affirmed that the central bank will keep raising borrowing costs should the economy and prices perform as policymakers expect, providing another support for the Japanese currency. 

Amid the global rally in bonds, the yen was also buffeted Wednesday by reports that the Biden administration is preparing to block Nippon Steel Corp.’s $14.1 billion takeover of United States Steel Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. 

“The market is trading more traditional risk-off this week,” said Skylar Montgomery Koning, a foreign-exchange strategist at Barclays in New York. “That has seen safe-haven currencies rally, with the yen favored given the expected divergence between the Bank of Japan and developed-markets policy.”

(Updates levels, adds Manulife comment and graf on US Steel.)