Japanese officials may have spent some ?3.66 trillion ($23.59 billion) on Wednesday to pull the yen back from near 34-year lows, Bank of Japan data suggested Thursday.

On Wednesday, the yen was at around ?157.55 per dollar when it suddenly spiked, strengthening as far as ?153 over the next half hour.

On Monday, the Finance Ministry (MOF) may have spent around ?6 trillion intervening in the market to prop up the yen after it dropped to ?160.245 for the first time since April 1990, the data showed.

The ministry each time declined to say whether or not it was behind the yen rallies, only repeating its readiness to step in at any time to stem disorderly moves.

Currency trades take two business days to settle, and Japanese markets are closed for public holidays this Friday and next Monday.

The central bank¡¯s projection for next Tuesday¡¯s money market conditions indicates a ?4.36 trillion net receipt of funds, compared with a ?700 billion to ?1.1 trillion estimate from money market brokerages that excludes intervention.

¡°This is a very large sum in a short period of time,¡± said Shoki Omori, chief Japan desk strategist at Mizuho Securities, referring to the two rounds of apparent intervention this week.

¡°Now that the MOF has spent roughly ?9 trillion, it is going to be less easy for them to intervene if the U.S. payrolls or other data come out strong,¡± providing more momentum for dollar buying, he said. ¡°MOF is getting pushed into a corner.¡±

Analysts point to the gaping gap between Japanese and U.S. government debt yields as the force behind the yen¡¯s slide.

Even after the BOJ raised interest rates for the first time since 2007 in March, policymakers have signaled a go slow approach to further tightening, which has kept long-term Japanese government bond yields well below 1%.

Equivalent Treasury yields have been pushing towards 5% as a robust economy and stubborn inflation forced markets to scale back their bets on Federal Reserve rate cuts.

U.S. Fed Chair Jerome Powell reinforced that idea on Wednesday when he reiterated that it ¡°will take longer than previously expected¡± for policymakers to become comfortable that inflation will resume the decline towards their 2% target.