00:00Sherry, those lines continuing to drop. Give us the key takeaways from that meeting.
00:06Yeah, this so far is very much as expected. I mean, we got the 25 basis point hike to the
00:12highest level since 1995, one percent, of course. And as you mentioned, we got the descent,
00:17one descent, and that came from board member Asada. Toichiro Asada, he's a reflationist
00:22board member who was appointed by Prime Minister Takahichi. So Bloomberg Economics actually called
00:27it a seven to one vote. We're also hearing that the BOJ wants the pace of hikes to depend
00:33on the Middle East to impact the economic outlook. Of course, we'll be watching what the
00:37inflationary impact will be from a peace deal if, in fact, that agreement sticks. So far,
00:44we know that, of course, Japan, before the conflict, imported more than 90 percent of oil from the
00:48Middle East. So this will be very consequential. We're now hearing that the BOJ is saying the
00:53financial conditions will remain accommodated. They're reducing the risk of a significant
00:58slowdown in the economy. Now, this is the part where we're getting some lines about JGB purchases.
01:05The amount of monthly JGB purchases is about 2 trillion yen from April of 2027. Of course,
01:13that's sort of in line with what we were expecting anyways. That was supposed to be around 2.1
01:18trillion yen per month. The policy rate will continue to support economic activity, according
01:25to the Bank of Japan. So we're not necessarily seeing any changes when it comes to JGB purchases.
01:31They will continue to trim JGB buying by 200 billion yen a quarter until the first quarter of 2027. This
01:39is interesting because we have seen reports that the JGB purchases or the reduction of JGB purchases
01:47could be stopped. That could potentially have been taken by the markets as a dovish signal. So you
01:52hike the rates, but you actually leave those reductions in place or you stop the reductions of
01:58the JGB purchases. Right now, we're hearing that they will continue to reduce the JGB purchases and
02:05that it will amount to about 2 trillion yen per month from April of 2027. So we're not necessarily
02:14seeing anything on JGB purchases, which is significant because, of course, quantitative
02:20tightening has happened together with these BOJ rate hikes. And that is what investors have been
02:27watching, perhaps in the signaling of the normalization policy of the Bank of Japan. So we are now seeing
02:35that board member Asada, who dissented in this vote, sees the downside risks for output and jobs as larger.
02:43So he dissented. He did not vote to hike rates. And now we continue to hear from the BOJ that
02:50conditions
02:50remain still accommodative.
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