BOJ Holds Back On Rate Increase

The Bank of Japan held off on expanding stimulus on Wednesday, even as slumping exports and falling oil prices threaten a hoped for steady growth. The BOJ chose to maintain its status quo in hopes that the economy would be able to handle the effect of China’s slowdown without additional monetary support and repeated its pledge to increase its monetary base at an annual rate of 80 trillion yen ($660 billion).

The BOJ decision came in at eight-to-one. BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda will hold a news conference at 3.30pm to explain the policy decision and will release new long-term economic and price forecasts.

There has been no expansion of stimulus measures since last October and with falling oil prices and weaker exports, particularly in a slowing China, it has been almost impossible for Japan to reach the BOJ’s 2 percent inflation target.

Consumer Prices Down

Core consumer prices have fallen 0.1 percent from the beginning of the year until September, while household spending has also slipped even as job availability hit a two-decade high.

According to Yuichi Kodama, chief economist at Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance, “The effect of the yen’s weakness (on import prices) is expected to taper off and consumer prices will probably weaken further from around the year-end. We forecast the BOJ will adopt more easing next January.”

The dollar slipped 0.3 percent against the yen to 120.72, hitting a low of 120.29, while the Nikkei was down 0.6 percent at 18,820.92 in early afternoon trade after the monetary policy announcement, compared with the morning close of 18,907.60. The Topix dropped 0.3 percent to 1,542.81 and the JPX-Nikkei Index 400 slipped 0.2 percent to 13,862.40.