Word: rates
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...though that average might be overstating where the ratio will eventually level out, anyway, since it includes the boom years. If the price-ratio needs instead to settle back to its preboom average, then we're easily looking at up to another year of drops based on the current rate of decline, according to Carbacho-Burgos...
...currency experts predict it could climb to 85 over the next few months - a level that could trigger intervention by the Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan, which would buy dollars in currency markets to boost the greenback and undercut the yen. Some analysts say the exchange rate could soon reach 80 yen to the dollar. That would almost certainly spark another plunge in Japan's beleaguered stock markets - another concern for Japanese authorities...
...Still, it's unclear whether intervention will be necessary. Some argue that the dollar-yen exchange rate is reaching a sustainable equilibrium and that the yen isn't as strong as it appears. "The yen's level until last year was abnormally weak," says Tohru Sasaki, chief currency strategist in Tokyo at JPMorgan Chase & Co. "Now it's coming back to normal...
...Sasaki attributes the yen's recent strength to the unwinding of the yen carry trade, referring to the widespread practice by investors over the past several years of borrowing yen at a low interest rate and investing the funds in currencies paying higher interest rates. That was an easy way to make money until central bankers in the U.S. and other countries began slashing borrowing costs as the credit crunch hit and their economies faltered. The carry trade "is a very strong and powerful movement, and it's difficult to stop it," Sasaki says. "I think that Japanese officials understand...
...today's negative impact on the Japanese economy is "not that large." That's because the U.S. over the past decade has seen higher inflation than Japan, where prices have been relatively flat for many years. To have the same effect as the peak in 1995 - when the exchange rate reached 79.75 yen to the dollar - Japan's currency would have to soar to 48 to the dollar, he says. "If we think about the inflation-rate differentials, the yen is not that strong right now." Tell that to Toyota...