Nikkei Leak: “BOJ Rate Hike Likely Next Week”

Just released. Full article + initial thoughts

Nikkei, the official unofficial pre-meeting communication arm of Bank of Japan, just published an exclusive for a BOJ rate hike (likely) coming next week.

Timing Context:

1. This is a full week early (BOJ policy meeting is next Fri 1/24).

2. Article dropped at 🇯🇵6pm Friday evening, after domestic markets are closed for the weekend while Europe and US still have full trading sessions to react (or not).

So, even though this was released in both Japanese and English, given the 2 points of timing context above - this is more so a testing of markets than a locked-in thing (i.e. not a -12 hours prior release), and testing of specifically the foreign market community, as per isolating via outside domestic market hours and into a weekend.

Very short article - I’ve copy/pasted in full (every subheader & photo caption etc) below - take a look, and will comment further after.

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Majority of BOJ board members likely to vote for rate hike next week

Japan's uncollateralized overnight call rate would hit 17-year high, if raised