The Bank Of Japan Chief Just Made The Yen Jump - But There Are Two Slightly Different Versions Of What He Said
In such a central bank-obsessed environment, the utterances of central bank chiefs become important events.
And we had an interesting moment just now, as the yen jumped significantly in the matter of seconds.
Bloomberg just ran a headline saying:
*KURODA SAYS BOJ HAS DONE WHAT'S NECESSARY AND POSSIBLE FOR NOW
But as Sebastien Galy of SocGen notes, Reuters ran this headline:
KURODA: TOOK ALL NECESSARY STEPS LAST WEEK TO ACHIEVE 2 PCT INFLATION TARGET IN 2 YEARS'
The first translation implies that it would be impossible for the BOJ to do anything more.
The second translation is not quite so limiting, just saying it did the maximum it could do last week (but doesn't say that there's not more it will be able to do).
And in fact, if you read the full BOJ wire piece, it actually sounds like Kuroda is willing to stimulate for longer than he prevously indicated.
So yes. If you're trading the yen, perhaps you should brush up on your Japanese.