Japanese yen: mixed messages - FT.com It is never enough for Japan's exporters. The yen has just suffered its second-worst start to the year in more than a decade and executives are already fretting that the weakness won't last. Unfortunately for corporate profits, they are probably right. On the other hand, the ongoing currency pressure must encourage boards to genuinely enact much-needed restructuring. A 7 per cent slump in the yen against the dollar to almost Y84 by mid-March had encouraged hopes that nearly five years of relentless strengthening, which took the yen to post-war highs at Y75 last autumn, had ended. This week however the yen crept back to a three-week high. The key is the Bank of Japan. Its unexpected decision in February to swamp the market with liquidity triggered the yen's fall. But more recently, its hawkish-sounding concerns about Japan's dire debt levels imply that it is not keen to loosen policy further. Cue confusion among yen-watchers. That includes companies preparing forecasts to be published this month. The risk is that, once more, executives use a too-weak exchange rate in hope, even though experience suggests that this will then form part of a profits warning by late autumn. The challenge for investors, therefore, is to look through the very real problems caused by the yen and focus on the depth and clarity of corporate re-organisations. Take Sony. Over the seven years of Howard Stringer's just-ended leadership, the yen's strength wiped a net Y235bn off operating income But that is less than half what Sony has spent on an unending, but (to date) insufficiently deep, series of restructurings. Toyota thinks Y95-100 to the dollar would be an appropriate rate. It might be, but it looks very unlikely. Exporters" shares generally track the yen closely. The only hope of breaking this is deep and real reorganisation. Signs of this are emerging. More, please.