Market Hunts for Signs of Yen Intervention in Fed Accounts

Fresh data on the Federal Reserve’s various accounts hints at two potential ways Japanese policy makers may have funded currency interventions this past week to bolster the yen.

One source may have been a Fed facility where central banks stash overnight cash to earn a market rate. The amount held in this pool — the Fed’s foreign reverse repurchase agreement facility — as of May 1 was down about $8 billion from a week earlier, to $360 billion, figures from the central bank show. It was the first drop since the week through April 10. Meanwhile, a separate cash account used by central banks tumbled about $17.8 billion.