Japan reveals record single-day yen intervention of 6.28T yen

Japan's Ministry of Finance disclosed on Friday that authorities purchased 6.2787 trillion yen on April 30, marking the largest single-day yen-buying operation ever recorded. The data, released as part of a quarterly breakdown covering April through June, confirms the scale of Tokyo's battle against a weakening currency that has since fallen to 40-year lows.nippon+1

The April 30 figure surpassed the previous single-day record of 5.9185 trillion yen set on April 29, 2024.nippon

Three Days of Golden Week Intervention

According to the Ministry of Finance data, Japanese authorities intervened on three separate days during the Golden Week holiday period. In addition to the record April 30 operation, authorities purchased 780.2 billion yen on May 4 and 4.6759 trillion yen on May 6, bringing the three-day total to 11.7349 trillion yen. The interventions were Japan's first since July 2024.nippon

The monthly data covering April 28 to May 27 had already confirmed the combined 11.73 trillion yen figure in late May, but the quarterly release provided the first daily breakdown showing how the funds were allocated across the three days.reuters+1

A Temporary Fix

Despite the record scale, the intervention provided only fleeting relief. The yen briefly strengthened from a low near 160.725 per dollar on April 30 to around 155 per dollar in the following days. But those gains evaporated within weeks, with the Japan Times News Corp ↗ 2.23% reporting that the currency slid back to pre-intervention levels by late June.japantimes+2

By the end of June, the yen had hit 162.27 per dollar — a 40-year low — prompting renewed concern about Tokyo's next move. The failure of the April-May interventions to halt the currency's decline ultimately led to a coordinated U.S.-Japan intervention last week, the first joint action since 2011, with Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama and U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent confirming yen-buying operations and pledging further action if needed.reuters+2

"We will not hesitate to conduct further joint intervention," Japan's Finance Ministry said in its statement confirming the bilateral action.aljazeera