The haven falls
避风港陷落
Japan is wrong to try to prop up the yen
日本试图支撑日元的做法是错误的
- prop sth↔up 撑起、支起；帮助、扶持、救济
Supporting the currency is expensive and futile
这种支撑昂贵又徒劳
- futile 表示“徒劳的、徒然的”或“无用的、无效的”（参见：小词详解 | futile）
IT IS EASY for investors to lose a fortune in the financial markets—and even easier for governments. In 2022 Japan spent more than $60bn of its foreign-exchange reserves defending the yen, its first intervention to strengthen the currency since 1998, after the exchange rate fell to nearly ¥146 to the dollar. And for what? Today the yen is weaker still. Yet instead of learning that fighting the market is futile, policymakers are repeating the mistake. After falling to ¥160 to the dollar on April 29th, its lowest in 34 years, the currency twice moved sharply upwards in the subsequent days. It seems the government is buying again, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars.
投资者在金融市场上亏一大笔钱是很容易的——政府就更是这样了。2022年，在汇率跌至接近146日元兑换1美元后，日本动用了超过600亿美元的外汇储备来保卫日元，这是它自1998年以来首次采取干预措施支撑日元汇率。结果又如何呢？如今日元还更疲软了。然而，政策制定者并没有认识到与市场对抗徒劳无功，他们正在重蹈覆辙。在日元于4月29日跌至160日元兑换1美元、创下34年新低后，接下来的几天里它两次大幅升值。看起来日本政府又在买进日元了，金额高达数百亿美元。
- subsequent 随后的；后来的；之后的；接后的
The yen has been falling primarily because of simple economic logic. The gap in interest rates between Japan and America is yawning. Although the Bank of Japan raised rates in March, it did so by only a smidgen: they increased from between minus 0.1% and zero to between zero and 0.1%. Rates in booming America, by contrast, are more than five percentage points higher. Investors expect the gap to shrink a little over time, but not by much. As a result a ten-year Japanese government bond yields just 0.9%, compared with 4.6% for an American Treasury of the same maturity.
日元持续下跌主要是因为一个简单的经济逻辑。日本和美国之间的利率差距正在扩大。尽管日本央行在3月加息，但幅度很小：从-0.1%到0之间上调到0到0.1%之间。而在正值繁荣期的美国，利率要高出5个百分点不止。投资者预计，随着时间的推移，这一差距会缩小一些，但不会缩小太多。结果就是10年期日本国债的收益率仅为0.9%，而同期限美国国债的收益率为4.6%。
- smidgen 少量；一点点
