RetireJapan

I'm from the UK.
Can anyone explain why the yen is so low against the dollar but not really low against the pound?
In the twenty years I have lived in Japan, the GBP/JPY rate has ranged from 116 to 255 to a pound.
These days it is around 185; it was 200 when I arrived in 2005.

This leads me to think that it is not so much the yen which is weak, but rather the dollar which is strong, no?

Currencies are all valued relative to something else, and yes generally now the dollar is broadly strong, but I would say the yen is broadly weak, too.

The only currency I pay attention to which is weaker than the yen, is the Turkish lira. That’s been a real dog though, so it’s no prize for the yen to be better than that. There are amusing instances of people referring to the Japanese lira recently.

The pound is a bit in the middle I guess. I don’t follow it closely but I think the lingering doubts about Brexit, and fiscal challenges and high inflation in the UK were some major factors that have kept a lid on it. It had a good spell last year when Truss was Prime Minister for those few weeks, but now it is way back above where it was versus the yen then.

Like the US dollar, the euro is also at multi year highs against the yen at the moment, and the yen is low against others like the CAD, AUD, NZD too. So, I do think the yen is weak, and the pound ain’t bad, relatively… for now.

In the end, I am not confident in all these manipulated currencies, they are mostly all in a race to the bottom, and I have become a bigger believer in the story of gold recently.