As we expected, the BoJ maintained its current monetary policy at today’s policy board meeting. 

In view of Ueda’s comments during the press conference, we still think that the BoJ could widen the range of fluctuation permitted on 10-year JGB yields from ±50bp to ±100 bps at its July meeting, if there is another US rate hike in July, 10-year JGB yields could once again stick at 0.5% and the USD/JPY rate could rise to 145.