Growing predictions of further BOJ easing
Reuters TOKYO (Reuters) — The Bank of Japan’s next move will be to loosen its already super-easy monetary policy, a small but growing contingent of economists say, amid risks of a slowdown and skepticism inflation will hit the central bank’s target.
Most economists polled by Reuters — 29 of 38 — still expect the BOJ’s next step would be to scale back its massive stimulus program.
But nine analysts — up from five in last month’s poll — said the central bank would instead boost stimulus with steps such as buying even more assets to flood the financial system with cash and tweaking the wording in forward guidance.
U.S.-China trade friction and an upcoming sales tax hike in October are casting a pall over the economy.
“If the risk of a recession rises, the BOJ will likely ease further,” said Hiroshi Ugai, chief economist at JPMorgan Securities Japan, one of the nine.
Nearly all economists polled — 33 of 36 — said they disagreed with the BOJ’s insistence that inflation was maintaining momentum toward reaching 2 percent. The latest Reuters poll was taken Feb 7-20.
Last month, the central bank cut its inflation forecasts but maintained the status quo in its massive stimulus program as Governor Haruhiko Kuroda warned of growing economic risks from trade protectionism and faltering global demand.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0005559383
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they printed quite a bit of yen on the first market day of 2019 for them. Had an emergency meeting to do it. Yen was at about 113 and it dropped to 105 and has worked it's way back up
see chart
https://www.dailyfx.com/usd-jpy?ref=TopRates