Citing sources familiar with the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) thinking, Reuters reported on Friday that “If the spring wage negotiations outcome is strong, the BoJ may not necessarily need to wait until April” to exit its negative interest rate policy (NIRP).
“The BoJ is leaning toward ending negative rates in March, the key determinant will be the outcome of March 13th wage talks,” the sources said.
Another report published by Jiji News Agency states that the “BoJ is considering a new quantitative monetary policy framework that will show the outlook for upcoming government bond buying amounts.”
“The BoJ will review yield curve control (YCC) as it considers a new quantitative policy framework,” Jiji reported.
The Japanese Yen is back on the bids following the above reports, smashing USD/JPY to near 147.00. The pair is down 0.69% on the day, as of writing.
The table below shows the percentage change of Japanese Yen (JPY) against listed major currencies today. Japanese Yen was the strongest against the Euro.
| USD | EUR | GBP | CAD | AUD | JPY | NZD | CHF | |
| USD | 0.14% | -0.11% | -0.15% | -0.34% | -0.60% | -0.13% | -0.12% | |
| EUR | -0.14% | -0.26% | -0.29% | -0.49% | -0.75% | -0.28% | -0.26% | |
| GBP | 0.11% | 0.25% | -0.04% | -0.24% | -0.50% | -0.03% | -0.02% | |
| CAD | 0.14% | 0.28% | 0.03% | -0.21% | -0.46% | 0.00% | 0.01% | |
| AUD | 0.34% | 0.49% | 0.23% | 0.20% | -0.25% | 0.19% | 0.22% | |
| JPY | 0.60% | 0.72% | 0.45% | 0.41% | 0.26% | 0.45% | 0.44% | |
| NZD | 0.14% | 0.28% | 0.02% | -0.02% | -0.21% | -0.44% | -0.01% | |
| CHF | 0.14% | 0.26% | 0.03% | -0.02% | -0.21% | -0.47% | 0.00% |
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 Euro from the left column and move along the horizontal line to the Japanese Yen, the percentage change displayed in the box will represent EUR (base)/JPY (quote).