Speculation is swirling that the Bank of Japan may move to exit the world’s last negative rate policy as early as next week, when policymakers gather for their March meeting. To be clear, most analysts expect Japan’s first rate hike since 2007 to take place in April after policymakers have more evidence of a meaningful wage increase following the “shunto” annual spring negotiations between unions and employers this week. “We continue to expect that the BOJ will terminate NIRP in April,” Goldman Sachs economists led by Tomohiro Ota wrote in a Tuesday note, referring to the negative interest rate policy. … (full story)
