The Yen Is Getting Slammed

The yen is going nuts again.

On Tuesday, the yen was trading near 115.7 against the dollar after briefly ticking above 116 overnight.

This is a new seven-year low for the yen against the US dollar.

The spike in the yen follows two pieces of news out of Japan.

Overnight, a report from Reuters, citing a government official close to Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe's office, said that Japan was likely to delay a planned increase in the nation's sales tax.

This news also came amid report that Abe is preparing to call a snap election. Business Insider's Tomas Hirst has the full breakdown of what the snap election could mean for Abe.

In late October, the Bank of Japan announced surprise stimulus measures, which sent the yen from a trading range of about 106-108 against the dollar to well above 110.

Here's the 5-minute chart showing Tuesday's rally in the yen, and a chart of the last two weeks of trading in the yen that shows the post-BoJ lift off.

And this action in the yen has sent Japan's Nikkei sharply higher, with Nikkei futures currently up more than 2% to well over 17,000.