The official record is a zero. The Ministry of Finance’s monthly disclosure, published on October 30, states that total foreign exchange intervention operations from September 29 through October 28, 2026 amounted to 0 yen. Japan did not buy or sell currency in the market during the period, on the ministry’s own accounting.
A zero is information because of where the yen traded while it was being recorded. The dollar stood at 157.31 yen in this site’s market tables this morning, down 0.33 percent on the day but up 0.52 percent on the week, leaving the yen close to the levels at which Japanese officials historically shift from verbal warnings to action. The period covered by the disclosure includes the run up to the Bank of Japan’s October 29 to 30 meeting, at which the bank held at 1.25 percent and judged underlying inflation to be at its target.
The Bank of Japan’s Outlook Report, published the same morning, named the exchange rate as one of the channels through which upside inflation risks could materialise, noting that yen depreciation now passes into prices more readily than in the past because firms’ wage and price setting behaviour has changed. That framing gives the ministry’s restraint a policy logic: with the central bank signalling further rate rises and a board member already dissenting for one, the authorities are letting the expected rate path do the currency work first.
The disclosure also sets the baseline for judging November. Any intervention in the weeks after the meeting will appear in next month’s release as a non-zero figure, and the market will read a continued zero, if the yen weakens through 160, as a deliberate choice about the level Tokyo is willing to tolerate while inflation sits at target. For now, the record says the defence of the yen remains verbal and monetary, not operational.