The Japanese yen is getting slammed in the aftermath of the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise rates for the second time this decade.
The currency is down by 0.7% at 118.0250 per dollar as of 7:38 a.m ET.
“Rising US yields are lifting the greenback against the yen,” wrote Marc Chandler, the global head of currency strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman. “There is little chart resistance until the JPY120 area.”
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve decided to raise its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to a range of 0.50% to 0.75%, as virtually all market watchers were expecting.
In its unanimous decision, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) noted improvement in the jobs market and the drop in the unemployment rate to a pre-recession low.
Additionally, the committee upped its expectation for the number of hikes in 2017, up to three from the prior forecast of two.