BOJ stands pat on policy as quake’s economic impact remains unclear

In a widely expected move, the Bank of Japan left the world’s last negative rate policy unchanged Tuesday, due in part to uncertainty over how the magnitude 7.6 earthquake that struck Ishikawa Prefecture on Jan. 1 will affect the Japanese economy.

Market participants and observers are closely watching for when the BOJ will start exiting negative rates, amid growing expectations that the central bank will likely seek normalization from its decadelong ultraloose monetary policy sometime this year.

For now, though, the BOJ kept its short-term rate target at negative 0.1% while aiming to control the 10-year Japanese Government Bond yield to around 0% and allowing it to swing to the 1% loose upper ceiling.