Japanese yen and U.S. dollar banknotes are seen with a currency exchange rate graph in this illustration picture taken June 16, 2022.
Traders have been on watch for weeks for a possible intervention by Japanese officials to combat a sustained depreciation in the yen.
"It could just be people expecting intervention and then reacting to what they believed to be intervention," said Asher.
To support the Japanese currency, authorities need to tap Japan's foreign reserves of dollars to sell for yen.
A senior Japanese ministry of finance official declined to comment on whether Japan had intervened in foreign exchange markets.
Persons:
Florence Lo, Michael Brown, Brown, Colin Asher, Asher, Niels Christensen, Jeremy Stretch, Edward Moya, Stretch, Tuesday's, Chuck Mikolajczak, Samuel Indyk, Saqib Iqbal Ahmed, Gertrude Chavez, Dreyfuss, Dhara Ranasinghe, Lucy Raitano, Ira Iosebashvili, Megan Davies, Jonathan Oatis, Andrea Ricci, Hugh Lawson, Gareth Jones
Organizations:
U.S, REUTERS, Trader, Mizuho, Nordea, Bank of Japan, New York Federal Reserve, CIBC Capital Markets, Ministry, Finance, Seven, Japan, Thomson
Locations:
TOKYO, London, Copenhagen, Japan, U.S, Tokyo, Asia, New York, United States