The Hedge Fund Toolkit Behind the Yen Intervention

日元贬值40年最惨,美国为何突然出手“续命”?

Big Take

2026-08-11

23 分钟
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单集简介 ...

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent’s move to prop up the yen was as surprising as its impact was fleeting. By Monday, the yen lost half of its gains since last month’s intervention, raising questions about what comes next. On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg’s Daniel Flatley and Chris Anstey join David Gura to break down Bessent’s unorthodox currency strategy and to explore how far Bessent might be willing to go to support another country’s currency. Read more: How Bessent Brings a ‘Buy-Side’ Mindset to Economic Statecraft Behind Bessent Moves, Wall Street Sees a Bond-Market Angst Listen More: Why a Weak Yen Is America’s Problem Carry Trades, Explained Hosted by David Gura; Produced by Laura Newcombe and David Fox; Reported by Daniel Flatley and Chris Anstey; Edited by Jeffrey Grocott. Fact-checking by Victor Swezey and Brunella Tipismana Urbano; Engineering by Emma Munger. Senior Producer: Naomi Shavin; Deputy Executive Producer: Julia Weaver. Executive Producer: Nicole Beemsterboer. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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  • Bloomberg Audio Studios: Podcasts, Radio, News.

  • Watching the yen quite closely obviously.

  • It's not gotten a huge gain.

  • The yen continued its recent slide on Monday,

  • and that's in spite of a rare joint effort

  • by the US and Japan late last month to try to strengthen it.

  • We are currently at one, what is that, 158 on dollar-yen.

  • So the yen has given up half of the gains that it made since that intervention.

  • The US stepped in to prop up the Japanese currency for the first time since 1998,

  • and that caught investors and central bankers by surprise.

  • The intervention was spearheaded by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent,

  • who cut his teeth as a macro trader working at hedge funds

  • before he started his current job effectively running the world's largest economy.

  • For Bessent, propping up the yen is more than the US helping an ally.

  • It's also something that could head off market moves that could result in higher interest rates in the United States.

  • The last thing he wants is to see, you know, US mortgage rates go even higher.

  • Chris Anstey is a senior editor on Bloomberg's Global Economy team,

  • and he points out Japan is the largest foreign holder of US Treasuries.

  • Chris says that if Japan wants to prop up its own currency by buying yen,

  • the dollars it needs to do so could come from selling some of its US debt.