A man walks past an electric monitor displaying the Japanese yen exchange rate against the U.S. dollar, Euro and other foreign currencies outside a brokerage in Tokyo.Japan’s key economic ministers kept investors wary of currency market intervention, warning that authorities were watching with a “strong sense of urgency” as the yen slid closer to the 150 per dollar level on Monday, its weakest in nearly a year.
The finance minister has jurisdiction over currency intervention, but he declined to comment on whether it was a possibility at this point. Japanese officials in a recent few weeks have said they would not rule out any options on intervention, but they have yet to utter the tell-tale phrases they used before unleashing intervention last year.