Comment: Ditched M&A deal is another blow for yen bulls

Seven & I Holdings Co

17/07/2025 10:35

July 17 (Reuters) - The news that Canada's Couche-Tard has scrapped its $46 billion bid for Japan's Seven & i is another blow for yen bulls.

The proposed deal would have been the largest ever foreign buyout of a Japanese company, and was widely seen as a test case for corporate Japan's openness to foreign takeovers.

The M&A deal failure helped inflate USD/JPY to an EBS intra-day high of 148.80. On Wednesday, the pair scaled an EBS 15-week peak of 149.19 - before tumbling to a 146.92 EBS low as the dollar tanked on speculation that U.S. President Donald Trump might fire Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell.

Data published on Thursday showed Japan's exports fell for a second straight month in June, as U.S. tariffs took a toll on the country's manufacturers.

CFTC data on FX positioning due on Friday will show if the net JPY long fell again in the week ended July 15, after falling 9% to a 20-week low of 116,155 contracts in the prior week.

Related comment: nL6N3TD0LI

For more click on FXBUZ

USDJPY https://tmsnrt.rs/4nUXdXZ

 (Robert Howard is a Reuters market analyst. The views expressed are his own)

 ((robert.howard@thomsonreuters.com))