Bank of Japan hikes rates, shorts value Tokyo coffee at zero
Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda took interest rates to a 31-year high and traders treated a stuck can as the crash
A drinks machine outside a Tokyo brokerage held onto a can of coffee on Monday and would not drop it. Short sellers, traders who profit when prices fall, logged the jam as the first tick of a crash.
Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda had just taken rates to a 31-year high as inflation neared the bank’s 2 percent target, a step reported by the New York Times. Funds that borrowed cheap yen for years to buy anything that paid more said that carry trade (cheap money in, fatter yields out) was one stuck can from a messy unwind.
Fourteen unsold cans sat behind the glass. Desk notes compared the coil to 1989, then 1997, then 2008. A bearish strategist told clients the machine had priced the break first.
This is the top. The can knows before the index does.
They priced the unopened coffee at zero and called the write-down conservative.
