The Bank of Japan decided at the monetary policy meeting held on Thursday to maintain its existing financial policy, keeping the policy interest rate (unsecured overnight call rate) at around 0.25%.
Since the decision to raise the policy interest rate to 0.25% at the end of July, the Bank of Japan has not conducted additional rate hikes in its last 3 meetings. Following the monetary policy statement, the yen weakened against the dollar, reaching the critical level of 155. According to Bloomberg reports, this exchange rate level is closely monitored by strategic analysts who believe that a drop below this level may trigger verbal intervention from Japanese authorities and increase pressure on the Bank of Japan to raise rates.
Yen observers will be focused on whether Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda will hint at the next rate hike during the news conference later on Thursday. If the yen continues to weaken, the central bank may face greater pressure to raise rates.
The Federal Reserve announced a rate cut this morning, with the federal funds rate lowered to a target range of 4.25% to 4.5%, but hinted at slowing the pace of rate cuts. This news severely impacted the cryptocurrency market, with Bitcoin (BTC) prices dropping over 5%, briefly falling below $99,000. After the Bank of Japan decided to keep interest rates unchanged, Bitcoin slightly rebounded to nearly $101,000.
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