Effects of Japanese macroeconomic announcements on the dollar/yen exchange rate

Yuko Hashimoto

"Market impacts of Japanese macroeconomic announcements within minutes on the dollar/yen foreign exchange are analyzed. High-frequency data collected from the actual trading platform, EBS, are used. First, impacts on returns are analyzed. Macroeconomic statistics releases that consistently had significant effects on exchange rate returns include Tankan survey (a short-term business survey conducted by Bank of Japan), GDP, industrial production (preliminary), PPI, CPI (Tokyo area), the unemployment rate and Balance of Payment statistics. Macroeconomic statistics releases that did not have impacts on returns include Trade Balance, Retail Sales and Housing start indicators. Second, for most of macroeconomic news items whose surprise components have return impacts also have impacts on deals and volatility. The announcement itself, in addition to the magnitude of surprise, is found...