A Clue to Solving the Yen ‘Flash Crash’ Mystery Uncovered
This article is for subscribers only.
Retail investors in Japan slashed their net long positions in the Turkish lira on Thursday, according to data from a trading platform, offering a clue to the mystery behind the flash crash that had sent the yen soaring against every currency in the world.
Individual investors cut their net lira long positions by 42,743 contracts on Thursday, the most since August, according to data from the Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc. The contracts were worth 427 million lira ($80.1 million), though it’s unclear whether the sales sparked the lira’s decline of as much as 9.2 percent against the yen, or happened after the wild gyrations triggered loss-covering.