Investing.com – The Bank of Japan (BoJ) is unlikely to make a monetary policy move at the end of its meeting on Tuesday though some market experts were unwilling to completely rule out a surprise.
After the BoJ cut rates into negative territory in a surprise move on January 29, most experts believe that the Japanese central bank will pause on Tuesday as it continues to evaluate the impact of its last move and as it waits to see what the Federal Reserve will announce at its own policy meeting on Wednesday.
According to a recent Bloomberg survey, 35 out of 40 economists expect the BoJ to keep its annual quantitative easing (QE) program at 80 trillion yen ($702 billion) on Tuesday with only two of these experts expecting a change to the policy rate currently at -0.1%.
Despite the survey, there is some room for doubt as Japanese inflation remains far from the 2% target, including having dropped to 1.1% in February from the prior 1.3%.
Even so, most bets for the next move appeared to be placed on the April meeting when the BoJ also updates its outlook for the Japanese economy.
Additionally, Koichi Hamada, economic adviser to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, placed his bets on the BoJ standing pat on Monday.
“I think the BoJ won’t take further action right now and it would probably be a wise decision,” the adviser told Reuters in an interview.