Japan’s record currency market intervention between April and May was aimed at curbing excessive yen movements driven by speculators and proved effective “to a certain extent,” Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said Tuesday. Until official data on currency intervention came out last week, Japanese authorities had not confirmed or denied market speculation that they had stepped into the foreign exchange market to slow the yen’s fall against the U.S. dollar. Their silence had kept market traders jittery, though analysts say the yen’s weakening trend has yet to be reversed. “We took action to cope…