🇺🇸 LATEST: Bessent just dared traders to bet against the yen, and there's a wild twist, 34 years ago, he helped Soros do exactly that to a different currency and won $1 billion.
Speaking at Southern Methodist University Tuesday, the Treasury Secretary didn't hold back: "I am the house now, so when we intervene with the Japanese yen, I have pretty good insight into what the Japanese, what the Bank of Japan is going to do, what Japanese policymakers are going to do."
Then the dare: "And you can bet against me if you want."
Pressed on why he'd say something that bold publicly, Bessent didn't dodge: "The advantage I have is asymmetric information."
Here's what makes this credible instead of just bravado. On July 31, the US and Japan carried out their first coordinated yen-buying intervention in nearly three decades. Japan's Ministry of Finance confirmed it spent a record 15.4 trillion yen, roughly $98 billion, defending the currency between July 30 and August 26. The result: USD/JPY has fallen from above 163 in July to 153.96 as of September 8, a genuine, sustained move.
The irony writing itself: at 29 years old, Bessent was the analyst who convinced George Soros to short the British pound in 1992, the trade that "broke the Bank of England" and netted the firm roughly $1 billion. Now he's on the opposite side of that exact playbook, defending a currency instead of attacking one, coordinating directly with the central bank rather than exploiting its weakness.
The live test arrives soon. The Bank of Japan is expected to consider a rate hike at its September 18 meeting, which would support the yen and ease pressure on Japan to keep selling US Treasuries to fund intervention.
If Tokyo delivers, Bessent's dare holds. If it doesn't, the man who wrote the rulebook on breaking a cornered central bank finds out if his own rule cuts both ways.
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