New BOJ Governor Surprises Markets

Surprising market players, the new governor of the Bank of Japan did not move to hold an emergency meeting of the policy setting committee as had been widely expected, which resulted in the steadying of the Japanese currency during the Asian trading session. One senior currency strategist in Tokyo said that previous comments about the bank’s determination to achieve a 2% inflation target which were made by the then-appointee had made the likelihood of an emergency meeting a quite plausible one. As reported at 12:17 p.m. (JST) in Tokyo, the USD/JPY pair was trading at 94.9 Yen, recovering from Thursday’s 1.2% slide. The EUR/JPY pair also edged higher to trade at 122.58 Yen, a gain of 0.2% and moving away from Thursday’s 1.5% fall.

In the Eurozone, worries about Cyrus continued to plague the common currency, while news of Cyprus’ downgrade to junk status also weighed. E.U. finance ministers have given the Cypriot government until Monday to make their final decision as to the terms of the bailout loan. Their failure to agree to the terms could result in a financial system collapse and ultimately the withdrawal from the common currency zone. The EUR/USD pair was trading higher at $1.2914, edging away from Tuesday’s 4-month low of $1.2843; the common currency is getting support from what analysts expect to be a positive sovereign bond sale in Spain.