Japan injects 68 trillion won in a single day on July 30 to defend exchange rate

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The scale of net selling in the first three quarters of this year reached 2.6 times the amount for the same period last year ($109.32 billion). Even compared to last year's total annual net selling ($149.13 billion), it is 1.9 times higher. Non-financial private enterprises refer to general companies excluding financial institutions and public enterprises.
While both selling and buying amounts increased simultaneously, the increase in selling exceeded the increase in buying. Cumulative selling through the third quarter of this year reached $736 billion, a 56.1% increase from the same period last year ($471.55 billion). In just nine months, it has already exceeded last year's total annual selling ($646.44 billion) by more than 13.9%. The buying amount was $449.43 billion, a 24.1% increase from the same period last year. Compared to last year's annual total ($497.31 billion), it is at 90% of that level.
The surge in selling was fundamentally driven by the impact of companies' dollar holdings increasing rapidly due to an "all-time high" current account surplus. The current account surplus in September was $61.46 billion, surpassing $60 billion for the first time in history. The cumulative surplus from January to September was $340.66 billion, more than four times the amount for the same period last year ($83.89 billion). Coupled with the government's encouragement of currency exchange and companies' demand for converting dollars to won for taxes or domestic investment, an increasing number of companies are converting dollars into won.
While Japan is in an all-out war to defend its exchange rate, South Korea's current account surplus in 2026 is expected to be in the low $500 billion range, and
there is a possibility that next year's current account surplus will reach $800 billion.
The net dollar selling amount will become even larger than this year.