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The yen's give-back is no longer a pause; it is picking up speed, and this hour the dollar did the buying. Into mid-morning in London the yen fell a median 16.1 basis points against all seven of its major counterparts — its third losing hour after four straight hours of gains, and the largest of the three — with no Japanese release anywhere near the window.

Two things frame the hour. The first came from Tokyo: Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama, speaking after the yen touched its strongest level since February, said Japan's stance on currencies has not shifted since the summer's joint intervention with the United States, that authorities will aim to keep the market orderly, and that she remains in close contact with Treasury Secretary Bessent.

That is not a threat — the summer's operations were mounted to strengthen the yen, not cap it, and Washington's stated preference still runs toward a firmer yen — but "orderly", said into a currency up nearly 4% from around 160 in barely a week, is a minister marking the pace, and a market this long heard it as permission to take something off.

The second frames the other side of the pair: wire coverage through the European morning runs under the plain headline that the dollar is advancing against the yen ahead of Friday's US inflation report, with markets pricing roughly a 60% chance of a Federal Reserve hike at next week's meeting.

The dollar rose against all seven of its counterparts this hour — the first hour this session it has managed that — and its softness, which all session was a yen story, has become an outright bid into a week it owns. The yen's legs still sort by what they pay: the dollar, with a hike part-priced, took the most at 18.8 basis points; the zero-rate franc took the least at 11.1, because the franc is itself still being sold — down against everything except the yen for a second consecutive hour, the funding role reporting has described for weeks, with hedge-fund franc shorts at a two-month high while yen shorts have been halved.

Outside those three currencies the board was quiet; the widest median elsewhere was the euro's 4.1 basis points of firmness. Nothing in the yen's case has changed — a September Bank of Japan hike remains heavily priced and the wage and growth data behind it stand — so what is being adjusted is the position, not the argument, ahead of three decisions in ten days: US inflation on Friday, the Federal Reserve on the 15th and 16th, the Bank of Japan the week after.

New York opens its first full session since the holiday this afternoon as the first deep liquidity to price a yen in the low 150s, with Bank of England testimony at 13:15 GMT the only scheduled stop before it. The 155.20-155.25 floor the yen broke on Monday is the line that separates a trim from a rejection; it is still well overhead and still untested from below, and until the pair trades back through it, this is profit being taken on the week's best trade rather than the trade changing its mind.