Japan intervened in the foreign exchange market during the early May holiday period, spending either more than $30 billion or over $30 billion.

Golden Finance News reports, citing Reuters, that a person familiar with the matter said on Friday that, in addition to the yen-buying operation carried out on April 30, Japan again intervened in the foreign exchange market during the early-May holiday period, reflecting Japan’s repeated interventions in the market. The source did not comment on the specific timing, frequency, or scale of the interventions. Based on the Bank of Japan’s monetary market data, Japan may have spent as much as 5 trillion yen (about $32 billion) from May 1 to May 6. Traders suspect that the three larger swings in the yen-to-US dollar exchange rate seen by Wednesday this week point to further intervention. Because Japan was closed for a three-day holiday, the latest Bank of Japan data suggest these operations may have been carried out across multiple trading sessions. Under International Monetary Fund standards, interventions of up to three times within six months are still classified as a “free-floating” exchange-rate regime, and interventions made within three business days are counted as one. (Jin10)