Japanese Yen Shows Weakness as BOJ Considers more QA

The Japanese yen fell against most of its G 20 trading partners, including the benchmark USD/JPY Forex market. This comes after dovish statements within the Bank of Japan’s summary of opinions report from the September monetary policy and interest rate decision meeting. There were suggestions, within the report, on the forward looking policy for the central bank. One policy member suggested that “more easing was necessary to stimulate demand.” Japan is getting ready for another sales tax hike due to go into effect on October 2019.

Also, within the report, the bank’s policy members also suggested the central bank needs to discuss the sustainability and time constraints of their two percent inflation target. One BOJ member raised the problem increasing geopolitical risks. The board member brought up what the bank may need to consider in order to stem possible deflationary impacts on the Japanese economy.

Japanese Yen Traders also look at Inflation Data

The comments from the Japanese central come just minutes before the island nation released its consumer price index (CPI). The CPI showed its fastest yearly increase in consumer prices since April 2015. The headline CPI figure beat expectations. The number came in up 0.7 percent in August. Analysts expected an increase of 0.6. The Bank of Japan’s preferred measure of inflation, the Core CPI figure, excludes food and energy prices, was also up. It came in line with analyst expectations of 0.2 percent for the month of August.

Investors not only go inflation data today. Employment data was also released. The jobless rate came in at unchanged at 2.8 percent. The job to applicant ratio fell slightly to 1.52. Household spending was also up by 0.6 percent. This was a little slower than analyst expectations of 0.9 percent.