"I am the house now, so when we intervene with the Japanese yen, I have pretty good insight into what the Japanese, what the Bank of Japan is going to do, what Japanese policymakers are going to do," Bessent said at a Southern Methodist University event in Texas on Tuesday.

"And you can bet against me if you want."

As Bloomberg reports, the comments were among Bessent's most strident yet in an extraordinary campaign to bend markets to his will, even in the face of investor skepticism.

The former hedge fund executive, who made his name with outsized currency wagers, recently oversaw the first purchases of yen by US authorities in three decades and surprised market participants last month with plans to ramp up buybacks of US Treasuries to restrain a surge in yields.

He argued that Treasury has an informational advantage because of its visibility into Japanese policymakers and the BOJ.

"Whenever people say, 'Oh, well, Treasury Secretary is taking a risk,' - well, it's my dream, I have asymmetric information," Bessent said.

Bessent's remarks also underscore his unusual level of engagement on economic policymaking in Japan, which is among the world's largest holders of US debt.

Bessent has coordinated with Japan Finance Minister Satsuki Katayama on currency interventions and put increasingly public pressure on the central bank to raise interest rates, a move that would support the yen and reduce Japan's need to sell Treasuries for market intervention.

"Bessent's remarks carry immense weight. The message is clear: do not defy the Treasury Secretary," said Tadashi Matsukawa, head of bond investments at PineBridge Investments Japan Co. in Tokyo.

"The old way of thinking — that interest rates would be raised once every few months — no longer applies."

Interestngly, Takumi Naya, head of the FX trading group at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.'s global markets operations department, suggested that,"Bessent's remarks suggest that he expects a correction in the yen's strength even at current levels."

Bessent's remarks have certainly flipped the positioning with hedge funds now betting the yen will strengthen beyond 150 per dollar by year-end, with some longer-dated options trades targeting a move to 140.

"Leveraged investors have been active and reacting to a potential regime change in the currency," said Jerry Minier, global head of linear G-10 FX trading at Citigroup in London.

"Option structures targeting dollar-yen below 150 by year-end have been popular."

Nomura has seen a similar shift toward bearish dollar-yen sentiment among macro hedge funds that seek to profit from market swings triggered by economic or political events.

There has been "much stronger demand for downside in the option space from the macro community who have shifted to increasing shorts, particularly since we broke 155.00 as most viewed that as a support line in the sand," said Graham Smallshaw, Singapore-based senior foreign-exchange spot trader at Nomura.