The BOJ Revised 2027 Inflation Up and 2027 Growth Down. The Yen Moved 40 Pips.
The Bank of Japan held at around 1.25 per cent, 8 to 1, with Hajime Takata dissenting for 1.5 per cent — and the Outlook Report moved three of its six point estimates.
Fiscal 2027 core inflation went to +2.6 per cent from +2.4, and fiscal 2027 real GDP to +0.7 from +0.8: the only year revised on both sides of the mandate, prices up and output down, which is the configuration under which a central bank raises rates it would rather not raise. Fiscal 2026 growth went to +0.7 from +0.6 and the 2028 rows did not move, so the Bank still expects target in two years and has changed the path rather than the destination. Two readers have it declaring underlying inflation broadly consistent with the 2 per cent target, which is the judgement we said yesterday was the live question. Dollar–yen was 157.52 eight minutes before the statement and 157.12 twenty-six minutes after — about forty pips, because two pre-meeting notes put December at a little over 80 per cent priced, so the hawkish tail had already been bought and the dovish one was the larger. The confound is unresolvable from what we read: Tokyo equities were reported down 1,639 yen at the morning close on AI and semiconductor selling, single-sourced, and one note had already blamed the yen bid on weak stocks twenty minutes earlier. Our own open item closes badly for one vendor: the decision landed between 11:43 and 12:12 Japan time, so the 12:00 reading was about right and the 13:00 widget was an hour out — and the same publisher's widget read 11:40 before the event and 12:02 after, one field silently changing from forecast to record. Ueda speaks at 06:30 UTC.