The Japanese yen demonstrated huge losses this week, dropping to multi-year lows (it fell to the lowest since 2008 against some currencies), as the Bank of Japan pursued aggressive quantitative easing.
Some analysts have thought that Haruhiko Kuroda would not take bold actions on his first policy meeting as the BoJ head. Nothing could be further from truth. Kuroda acted and acted boldly, as he had promised.
The European Central Bank and the Bank of England refrained from changing their policies. Such decision was expected by market participants, but monetary easing remains in the cards as the European economies stay in recession.
As for the United States, non-farm payrolls were a huge disappointment for those who have hoped for stable employment growth in the nation. The poor employment data suggests that the Federal Reserve will not drop QE anytime soon.
USD/JPY surged from 94.25 to 97.76 (the highest since July 2009), rebounding from the weekly low of 92.55. EUR/JPY soared from 120.66 to 127.17 following the drop to the weekly minimum of 119.09. GBP/JPY jumped from 143.16 to 149.94 (the highest weekly close since December 2009) this week after touching the low of 140.35.
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