The yen reversed steep early gains and slid on Monday in choppy trade as market players bought the Australian dollar against the Japanese currency ahead of an expected rate hike in Australia this week.
The yen advanced broadly in early Asian trade, touching its highest levels in several weeks, after exceptionally low trade in forex margin deals on the South African rand against the yen, which triggered a knock-on fall in crossyen pairs.
The rand is one of the high-yielding currencies into which Japanese retail investors have been shifting funds.
Japanese margin forex traders had roughly tripled their net long positions in rand/yen over the past couple of weeks to 40,356 contracts as of Friday.