Japanese Finance Minister Yoshihiko Noda said on Saturday Tokyo would take decisive steps to stem the yen's rise when needed, while suggesting that co-ordinated currency market intervention was a difficult option. Traders are getting cautious about bidding the yen up too much after Japanese ministers kept up warnings against the currency's surge to 15-year high versus the dollar.
Policymakers have repeatedly said they could take decisive action on the yen - normally a code phrase for currency intervention. "What they (Kan and Ozawa) have been saying means the same thing. The issue is whether we would actually decide to intervene at the end," Noda said on a Tokyo television programme. "Our statement that we would take decisive steps when needed says it all," he added.