BoJ leaning to keep rates steady next week – Reuters
Citing five sources familiar with the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) thinking, Reuters reported on Thursday that the Japanese central bank is considering to keeping interest rates steady next week.
A source said, “policymakers prefer to spend more time scrutinising overseas risks and clues on next year's wage outlook.”
"Japan isn't in a situation where imminent rate hikes are needed," one of the sources said.
"With inflation benign, it can afford to spend time scrutinising various data," another source said, a view echoed by two more sources.
"The biggest risk for Japan's economy comes from overseas," a third source said, saying that sluggish global demand could hurt corporate profits and dampen their appetite to hike pay.
In a sign of its confidence over the economic outlook, the central bank is likely to maintain its view that consumption is "increasing moderately as a trend," they said.
Market reaction
USD/JPY has recovered losses on these headlines, rebounding to near 152.50. The pair hit an intraday low at 151.95 earlier in the Asian session on Thursday.
Japanese Yen PRICE Today
The table below shows the percentage change of Japanese Yen (JPY) against listed major currencies today. Japanese Yen was the weakest against the Australian Dollar.
| USD | EUR | GBP | JPY | CAD | AUD | NZD | CHF | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USD | -0.12% | -0.13% | -0.08% | -0.11% | -0.68% | -0.33% | -0.05% | |
| EUR | 0.12% | -0.01% | 0.05% | 0.00% | -0.56% | -0.22% | 0.06% | |
| GBP | 0.13% | 0.01% | 0.08% | 0.02% | -0.55% | -0.20% | 0.07% | |
| JPY | 0.08% | -0.05% | -0.08% | -0.04% | -0.61% | -0.30% | 0.01% | |
| CAD | 0.11% | -0.01% | -0.02% | 0.04% | -0.56% | -0.22% | 0.05% | |
| AUD | 0.68% | 0.56% | 0.55% | 0.61% | 0.56% | 0.35% | 0.63% | |
| NZD | 0.33% | 0.22% | 0.20% | 0.30% | 0.22% | -0.35% | 0.28% | |
| CHF | 0.05% | -0.06% | -0.07% | -0.01% | -0.05% | -0.63% | -0.28% |
The heat map shows percentage changes of major currencies against each other. The base currency is picked from the left column, while the quote currency is picked from the top row. For example, if you pick the Japanese Yen from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the US Dollar, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent JPY (base)/USD (quote).