Japan's top FX diplomat warns against speculative moves as yen falls

By Makiko Yamazaki

TOKYO (Reuters) -Japan's top currency diplomat, Atsushi Mimura, issued on Monday a warning against speculative moves on the foreign exchange market as the yen fell below 149 per dollar.

"We will monitor currency market moves including speculative trading with a sense of urgency," Mimura told reporters, reviving a verbal warning tactic that his predecessor, Masato Kanda, frequently used.

Mimura declined to comment on the specifics of the current market situation.

The yen depreciated to 149.10 versus the dollar in early trading on Monday, the weakest since Aug. 16, after a surprisingly strong U.S. jobs report for September led traders to cut bets that the Federal Reserve will make further large interest rate cuts.

The yen has also been under pressure since new Japanese premier Shigeru Ishiba stunned markets when he said the economy was not ready for further rate hikes, an apparent about-face from his previous support for the Bank of Japan's unwinding decades of loose monetary policy.

(Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki and Rocky Swift; Editing by Kim Coghill and Muralikumar Anantharaman)