BOJ (Bank of Japan) raised interest rates for its second time of 2024, first one taking place back in March. Economically it’s a very different situation to the likes of BoE and Federal Reserve. Japan’s new interest rate moved from 0.1% to 0.25%, the highest it has been in 15 years.
This has led to JPY strength against its peers, with market speculating that BoJ is more hawkish than initially anticipated with two rate hikes in the last four months.
In the last two days we have seen preliminary inflation levels across several European countries, showing mixed signals with increases for Germany and France month-on-month, while Spain’s inflation was predicted to fall from 3.4% to 2.8%. Later today we also have Italy’s and the whole Euro zone’s preliminary inflation levels for July to be released.
This has not had much impact on markets but can be of important data for ECB to study – seeing different developments country by country ahead of their next policy meeting. Germany also had job figures being released this morning, showing concerns after their unemployment levels still sit very high at 6%. Applications of unemployment also increased in July, which could potentially see the total unemployment level to continue growing.
