New York Federal Reserve: US Treasury’s coordinated intervention in July used about $500 million euros to support the yen

(1) The New York Fed stated in its quarterly foreign exchange intervention report on Thursday that, as the fiscal agent of the U.S. Treasury, it purchased 79.4 billion Japanese yen in the spot foreign exchange market and simultaneously sold euros from the Exchange Stabilization Fund; at current exchange rates, this amount is approximately $497 million. (2) According to the report, this operation was intended to "address what the U.S. Treasury considered disorderly movements in the yen," confirming that, during the coordinated intervention with Japan on July 31, the U.S. Treasury used around $500 million worth of its euro holdings to support the yen exchange rate. (3) At that time, the yen-dollar exchange rate plummeted to as low as 163.9, its lowest level since the 1980s, prompting joint intervention by the U.S. Treasury and Japan; according to data from Japan's Ministry of Finance, as of August 26, Japan had deployed a record $97.5 billion in this intervention.