BoJ is expected to assess whether underlying inflation has reached its 2% target at its October 29th-30th policy meeting, while keeping interest rates unchanged at around 1.25%, Kyodo reports

BoJ is expected to assess whether underlying inflation has reached its 2% target at its October 29th-30th policy meeting, while keeping interest rates unchanged at around 1.25%, Kyodo reports.

Kyodo-sourced previews of BoJ meetings have historically been a reliable guide to the outcome, since the bank manages expectations through favoured outlets rather than surprising a consensus it has helped build. The pattern in this tightening cycle has been steady: holds framed as conditional on confirming underlying inflation at target, with the language around that assessment doing more work than the rate decision itself. The distinction that matters for pricing is between a hold with hawkish guidance, which steepens the expected path at the front of the JGB curve, and a hold read as stalling, which tends to flatten it and relieve the yen carry unwind pressure that flares when hiking conviction builds. What carries the signal is the qualifier attached to the inflation judgment: 'has reached' versus 'is approaching' the target has separated hawkish and dovish holds in prior rounds of this cycle. Follow-ons worth noting are the outlook report language on wage pass-through, the Governor's press conference tone, and any dissent, which has been an early tell of the next move. As a sourced preview rather than a decision, the information content is the framing, not the rate level, which the headline itself treats as settled.