Correspondingly, assets considered relatively safe have invited investors’ purchases; for example, yields on government bonds issued by the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom were at historically extreme low levels. As for currencies, the Swiss franc, Japanese yen, and U.S. dollar have been regarded as having low risks, and this has led to the rise in these currencies in the exchange market.
As illustrated, it can be said that the recent appreciation of the yen is one example of the spillover effect of the sovereign debt problem in Europe into Japan through the increasing risk aversion by global investors. In this regard, the Ministry of Finance intervened to the foreign exchange market today.