In fact, yen-selling has only recently begun to accelerate as global investors finally respond to the nearly catastrophic economic conditions in the Japanese economy and start to modestly hedge their long yen exposures.
Unless an investor has a business reason such as hedging to be long yen, they will probably be reluctant to push the Japanese currency higher over fear that the BoJ will step in again.
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The government has long since promised YEN 30 trillion for this, but details of how it plans to spend the money are still sketchy.
Its boss, Yoshiya Kuze, thinks that it may have repaid the original investment in another four years as long as the yen does not climb further.
According to all, the only way is up in the medium- to long-term as yen dynamics continue to serve as a trigger for this broad asset market move.
Global investors will likely remain underweight in the yen for a long time, and fresh demand for the currency will continue to drop.
With monetary policy being tightened by a rise in the yen and in long-term interest rates, it must now decide whether to loosen further.
The nostalgia is understandable: that pact was followed by a long period of strength for the yen and a boom for much of Asia fuelled by deceptively low-cost dollar borrowing and big inflows of Japanese investment.
The bottom line for right now is that the long-term trends for both the yen and euro have not changed.
The finance minister would not be averse to further weakening of the yen, at least so long as the Americans do not object loudly.
" It remains a futures-led market with hedge players who had formerly gone long on Nikkei futures and shorted the yen now doing the opposite, " said Investrust CEO Hiroyuki Fukunaga.
But that argument will be hard to make for as long as stockmarkets are weak, the yen continues to rise and American and European economies remain wracked by credit troubles.
Among the bets the Pure Alpha fund placed last year were long positions in Treasury bonds, the Japanese yen, and gold, and short positions in the euro and European sovereign debt.
Even after Japan's near-20% devaluation this year, the yen is still trading within its long-term range, having been significantly overvalued over the past few years as it attracted safe-haven flows in response to the euro crisis.
But after the pound's long, traumatic post-war decline, overtaking the yen still counts as a minor miracle.
"The point at which Japan's savings turn around in terms of momentum has long been seen as the time to sell the Japanese yen, " said Sebastian Galy, strategist at Societe Generale.
Of the main currencies, the yen looks by far the cheapest relative to its long-term trend.
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Moody's placed Sony's long-term credit rating under review for a possible downgrade, citing the yen's strength, weak demand and "structural challenges" at the onetime king of consumer electronics.
Mr Sakurai added that while the drop in the yen's value was a welcome relief for Panasonic, until it addresses the long term issues, the firm's future remained uncertain.
While the South Korean companies have had to battle with a rising currency, Japanese firms, which for a long time had a similar problem, are likely to benefit from the recent weakening of the yen.
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The yen's drop below 100, a much-watched key level, has long been anticipated as the Bank of Japan unveiled aggressive monetary policy plans early last month aimed at boosting growth at home by spurring lending and weakening the currency.
The long-term chart of the exchange rate shows that it is barely a blip, as the long-term downtrend (line a) goes back to 1976, when the rate was 305 yen per dollar.
To push back, Dunne says using new-found profits from a weaker yen to move manufacturing plants to cheaper locales overseas is one way to stay competitive -- as long as the pace of expansion is controlled.
CNN: 'Japan Inc.' on the brink: Weak yen a lost opportunity?
On Thursday, Japan's central bank unveiled a plan to buy trillions of yen more in government bonds and other assets, as part of a new easing campaign to depress long-term yields and eventually revive the long-stagnant economy.
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