The Japanese Yen continues to under-perform in 2013, delivering the worst returns of any major currency represented via an ETP this year.
FXY (CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust, Expense Ratio 0.40%) is a $143 million fund, and trades about 263,000 shares on an average daily basis and has seen a decent uptick in trading volume in recent sessions. The fund has actually reeled in $37 million year to date, a substantial sum given the total asset base of the fund.
The much smaller JYN (iPath JPY/USD Exchange Rate ETN Medium Term, Expense Ratio 0.40%) also exists in the Japanese Yen currency space, but the fund appears to be on no one’s radar, going days if not a week at times on end with zero volume traded.
The leveraged space is rather well covered concerning the Japanese Yen, as YCL (ProShares Ultra Yen, Expense Ratio 0.95%) and YCS (ProShares UltraShort Yen, Expense Ratio 0.95%) are designed to deliver two times the daily return and two times the daily inverse returns of Japanese Yen futures respectively.
YCS specifically has seen a big volume uptick in the past couple days as the fund appears to be breaking out from a month long trading range while there is quite a bit of congestion with the 50 and 200 day MA levels at current price levels, and apparently bears are again lurking in the Japanese Yen.