The Yen is retreating a bit. Overview for 23.01.2019

USDJPY is trading a little bit upwards; investors are monitoring news and statistics.

The Japanese Yen is retreating a bit against the USD on Wednesday afternoon. However, fluctuations are very weak: market players are obviously saving strengths in anticipation of more significant news. The current quote for the instrument is 109.66.

The January meeting of the Bank of Japan was over today and the key rate remained unchanged at -0.1%. However, this decision was expected: the Japanese regulator continues its ultra “soft” monetary policy along with the QE program and is slowly pushing the inflation towards the target of 2%. 

In the comments, which were rather neutral, the Bank of Japan changed its inflation forecast. The average value of the Core CPI for 2019-2020 fell from 1.4% to 0.9%. For 2020-2021, the value also dropped from 1.5% to 1.4%. It means that the indicator turned out to be much more difficult to improve than it was expected earlier. 

According to the BoJ, the inflation has a steady impulse. Steady, but not strong enough, and that is the key problem. At the same time, the long-term target remains unchanged, 2%. 

However, the GDP forecasts were revised upwards this time. In 2019-2020, the indicator is expected to add 0.9% against the previous estimate of 0.8%; in 2020-2021, it might increase by 1.0%.