BoJ Goes For Nuance With ‘Flexible’ YCC

The BoJ, under new governor Kazuo Ueda, went for nuance on Friday, but I'm afraid they might've engendered a bit of confusion in the process. A Nikkei report suggesting the bank might tweak its yield-curve control corridor at the July meeting unnerved US markets late Thursday and had traders on edge in the lead up to the policy statement. Sure enough, the BoJ announced a tweak. Sort of. The bank kept the 0.5% range, but instead of a "rigid" (their word) corridor, it's now a "reference" region.