BoJ to keep interest rates unchanged through year-end - Reuters Poll  

Most economists now expect the Bank of Japan will hold interest rates through year-end, a Reuters survey showed. 

Additional takeaways

None of the 60 economists in the June 2-10 survey expected the BOJ to raise rates at its upcoming policy meeting on June 16-17.

52% of economists, 30 of 58, expected borrowing costs to stay at 0.50% at year-end, the reverse of a poll in May when 52% expected rates at 0.75% by end-2025.

More than three-quarters of respondents, 40 of 51, now expect at least one 25-basis-point increase by end-March, the poll showed.

Of 35 economists who specified a month for when the BOJ will next hike rates, January 2025 was the top choice at 37%, followed by 23% for October this year and 9% saying March 2025.

The BOJ exited a massive stimulus program in March last year and pushed up short-term interest rates to 0.25% in July and 0.50% in January.

Just over half of respondents, 17 of 31, said the BOJ would decelerate its pace of tapering JGB purchases from the current roughly 400 billion yen per quarter beyond April next year.

Of those respondents, the quarterly taper size prediction ranged from 200 billion yen to 370 billion yen.

Three-quarters of economists, 21 of 28, said the government would trim the issuance of super-long bonds while the rest said the amount would not change.Japan's government (not BoJ) issuance of super-long JGBs to decrease, say 75% of economists, 25% say no change.  

Market reaction

At the time of writing, the USD/JPY pair is trading 0.11% higher on the day at 145.00.