At the WBC game against South Korea, seeing Samurai Japan’s Lars Nootbaar go for a mighty diving catch and sprint tenaciously to second base by outdoing the defense, he must have been nodding, “Yes! This is it!”
On March 19, 2025, at its Monetary Policy Meeting, the Bank of Japan (BOJ) decided—just as markets had expected—to maintain its current policy stance. Specifically, the Policy Board unanimously approved keeping its money market operations framework aimed at guiding the uncollateralized overnight call rate to around 0.50%. Because this outcome had been widely priced in, there was little immediate volatility in equities or government bonds after the announcement.