Fed Governor Lisa Cook Warns Inflation Risks Remain as Rates Stay Steady 
Gold Prices Fall Amid Rate Jitters; Copper Steady as China Stimulus Eyed 
China Holds Loan Prime Rates Steady in January as Market Expectations Align 
Federal Reserve Faces Subpoena Delay Amid Investigation Into Chair Jerome Powell 
BOJ Policymakers Warn Weak Yen Could Fuel Inflation Risks and Delay Rate Action 
Bank of Canada Holds Interest Rate at 2.25% Amid Trade and Global Uncertainty 
RBI Holds Repo Rate at 5.25% as India’s Growth Outlook Strengthens After U.S. Trade Deal 
RBA Expected to Raise Interest Rates by 25 Basis Points in February, ANZ Forecast Says 
Why Trump’s new pick for Fed chair hit gold and silver markets – for good reasons 
In a speech titled, “Comprehensive Assessment of the Monetary Easing: Concept and Approaches, Bank of Japan (BoJ) governor Haruhiko Kuroda delivered strong wordings and stressed that the notions of central banks going out of tools or hitting policy limits are far from being correct. However he laid out that there are no free lunches even for monetary policies and there are certain costs associated to the policies. Below are the key highlights,
- Mr. Kuroda stressed that reaching the 2 percent inflation goal at the earliest time possible remains the top priority of the Bank of Japan (BoJ).
- He said that no central bank is out of tools but when large scale easing continues there are costs to additional easing and it’s cost and benefits rather than limits. According to him, the Japanese economy has lot to gain if the inflation target is achieved.
- He stressed that rather than limits, there are certain areas of monetary policy that would be beyond the legal boundaries or shouldn’t be done such as underwriting government bonds or monetizing fiscal deficits. That means ‘Helicopter money’ is out.
- He said, as of now, there are scopes of pushing rates further into the negative and increase the size of the asset purchases.
The yen is currently trading at 103.5 per dollar.
