SWISS NATIONAL BANK SAYS IT BOUGHT DOLLARS

  The Swiss National Bank bought dollars
  against yen today, a spokesman for the bank said.
      He declined to say how many dollars the bank bought or when
  precisely it intervened.
      Swiss foreign exchange dealers described the National
  Bank's purchases as modest, perhaps amounting to no more than
  20 or 30 mln dlrs.
      The Bank of France, which was reported buying dollars
  against the yen in Paris, had made inquiries with Swiss banks
  as well, and the Bundesbank had also intervened. Bank of Japan
  dollar purchases today were perhaps 1.2 to 1.5 billion dlrs.
      Dealers said this tended to confirm the market's impression
  that major industrial countries had agreed at the Paris meeting
  on an effective floor for the dollar of 148 yen, and the market
  seemed ready to test it.
      Commercial clients were also selling dollars against the
  yen as the end of the Japanese fiscal year on March 31 drew
  closer. Today's dealings in spot currencies are booked for
  March 31.
      One dealer said he had the feeling Japanese companies had
  been asked by the Bank of Japan not to sell dollars at this
  point, but some, while sticking to the letter of that request,
  were offering dollars forward today, rather than lose out if
  the dollar fell further.
      The run on the dollar against the yen came in a market
  thinned by the absence of many dealers for a Forex Club meeting
  in Hamburg.
      Trading was, in fact, rather light against currencies other
  than the yen, the dollar holding little changed through the
  day.
      The market now expected the U.S. Federal Reserve to
  intervene in support of the dollar. "But they will probably do
  it only half-heartedly, so I don't think it will matter too
  much on rates," one dealer said.
  

