TOKYO, Nov 1 (Reuters) - The dollar jumped suddenly against the yen on Monday, prompted by speculation of intervention by Japanese authorities, but then gave up the gains very quickly as traders cited talk that there might have been a technical glitch rather than intervention.
A Ministry of Finance official declined to comment on the sudden move in dollar/yen, which had fallen within range of its post-war record low of 79.75 yen.
"There is talk that it was intervention but it doesn't seem like the market is heating up that much. There hasn't been any confirmation," said a trader for a Japanese brokerage house.
"Since it looked like the market may test the 80.00 yen level this morning, it would not be strange to see the kind of action to check such moves," the trader said.
Others said, however, there was also talk in the market of a miss-hit or technical problem which had led traders to believe that Japanese authorities had intervened.
There was one episode recently when traders had suspected intervention but it just turned out to be fund operators buying back the dollar, so it is hard to tell, the trader said.
The dollar leapt more than 1 yen to 81.60 yen very quickly in early trade but rapidly gave back some of its gains to trade at 80.67 yen, up 0.4 percent on the day.
The market is wary that Japanese authorities could intervene the closer the dollar falls to its post-war record low of 79.75 yen.
Japanese authorities intervened to sell yen for the first time since 2004 on Sept. 15, intervening repeatedly through the Asian, European and U.S. trading day to drive the dollar up from a 15-year low. (Editing by Chris Gallagher)