FRED – JPY/USD Daily Exchange Rate

Rows: 14,450
Columns: 2

Daily Japanese Yen per US Dollar from 1971 to present. Long-run major currency pair time series.

AI analysis

FRED JPY/USD Daily Exchange Rate – Dataset Analysis

1. Dataset Overview & Research Value This dataset captures the daily Japanese Yen per US Dollar exchange rate sourced directly from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (FRED) API at https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=DEXJPUS, one of the most authoritative and actively maintained macroeconomic data repositories in the world. Spanning from 1971 to the present across 14,450 daily observations, it represents over five decades of one of the world's most traded currency pairs, encompassing landmark events such as the Nixon Shock, Plaza Accord, Asian Financial Crisis, 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and post-pandemic monetary divergence between the Fed and Bank of Japan. The FRED source guarantees institutional-grade reliability and near real-time freshness, making this dataset exceptionally well-suited for macroeconomic correlation studies, monetary policy research, and financial modeling.

2. Data Quality Observations Overall data quality is strong, with zero null values in the Date column and no structural type mismatches detected. The primary quality concern is the 566 null values in DEXJPUS (3.9% of rows), which likely correspond to weekends, U.S. federal holidays, or Japanese market holidays when exchange rates are not published — a known and expected characteristic of daily financial time series rather than a data integrity failure. These gaps should be handled deliberately in any analysis: forward-fill or interpolation is common for continuity, though dropping non-trading days is preferable for return-based calculations. No duplicate rows were flagged, which is expected given that Date shows 14,450 distinct values matching the total row count exactly — a strong indicator of a clean, deduplicated time index.

3. Key Column Distributions The DEXJPUS column tells a rich macroeconomic story through its statistics. The mean of 156.23 JPY/USD versus a median of 123.97 signals a right-skewed distribution (skewness = 1.14), reflecting the historically weak yen of the 1970s–1980s pulling the average upward. The min of 75.72 (near the 2011 post-earthquake yen peak) and max of 358.44 (early 1970s era) bracket a 4.7x range of values. The interquartile range of 108.58 (Q1) to 207.66 (Q3) with a standard deviation of 69.04 confirms substantial long-run volatility. The 156 flagged outliers likely cluster in the pre-Plaza Accord period (pre-1985) when the yen traded above 200, and potentially in the recent 2022–2024 yen depreciation episode — both periods of major policy relevance worth isolating as analytical subsets.

4. Recommended Join Key Columns The Date column is the natural and unambiguous join key — it is fully populated (0 nulls), entirely distinct (14,450 unique values), and formatted as a standard date type, making it straightforward to align with virtually any daily or lower-frequency macroeconomic, financial, or geopolitical time series. For joining with monthly or quarterly datasets (e.g., GDP, CPI), aggregating DEXJPUS to period averages or end-of-period values using the Date column as the anchor is recommended. Care should be taken to align trading-day calendars when joining with other asset class datasets that may follow different holiday schedules.

5. Suggested Correlation Datasets Several dataset categories would pair powerfully with this series. U.S. and Japanese interest rate differentials (e.g., FRED series FEDFUNDS and Bank of Japan policy rate data) are theoretically the strongest correlate via interest rate parity — the 2022–2024 yen collapse is almost entirely attributable to this spread. Japanese CPI and U.S. CPI (FRED: CPIAUCSL) would support purchasing power parity analysis. Nikkei 225 or TOPIX equity index data would illuminate the export-competitiveness channel, as a weaker yen historically boosts Japanese equities. U.S.-Japan trade balance data (Census Bureau or MOF Japan) would suit fundamental analysis. Finally, commodity prices — particularly crude oil (WTI) and gold — are well-known to correlate with safe-haven currency flows involving the yen, making them compelling candidates for multi-variable regime analysis.

Columns

Date (date)
DEXJPUS (decimal)