BEIJING: The yen rose from near a two-week low against the dollar after the Bank of Japan refrained from adding to already unprecedented stimulus at a policy meeting.
Japan’s currency gained versus all except three of its 16 major peers after central bank Governor Haruhiko Kuroda kept a pledge to expand the monetary base at an annual pace of 80 trillion yen ($668 billion), as forecast by all 34 economists in a Bloomberg survey. He remains far from achieving his 2 percent inflation target, with the central bank’s main gauge sinking to zero on cheaper oil and a weak economic recovery.
“If they are going to ease, it’ll be once we’ve had further evidence of what’s going on in the economy,” said Chris Weston, chief market strategist in Melbourne at IG Australia, a unit of IG Group Holdings Plc. “The Bank of Japan are happy to see a slower depreciation of the yen.”
The yen rose 0.4 percent to 119.80 per dollar at 2:02 p.m. in Tokyo from Tuesday, following a two-day 1.1 percent decline. It advanced 0.1 percent to 129.94 per euro after weakening as much as 0.2 percent before the BOJ announcement.
