日本央行加息至1.25%重塑套利交易

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio, news. It's been a huge week for central banks around the world.

For the first time ever, the Federal Reserve, European Central Bank, and Bank of Japan have all raised interest rates in the same month.

Central banks are hiking rates to fight inflation. And on Friday, the Bank of Japan joined the club. What we're seeing here is a milestone for uh Japan's comeback onto the global stage. Bloomberg's Paul Jackson covers Japan's government and economy out of Tokyo. The BOJ held borrowing costs at or close to zero for three decades. It began increasing rates about 2 years ago. Today's 25 basis point rate hike continues that trend, but it comes with big risks that hearken back to the early '90s.

Now, what happened then? uh the Bank of Japan raised interest rates so quickly that the stock market collapsed and it took more than three decades to recover and it heralded the start of decades of stagnation. It's not just the Japanese economy that's at stake here. Japan is a key player in global markets and it's the fourth largest economy on the planet. That means that even small movements in interest rates in Japan can have big effects on the rest of the world including the United States.

You know, one thing that you can see uh with these movements is you know once the kind of tide turns the momentum can move quite quite quickly and if it does so then you'd see quite a bit of strengthening in the yen over the coming months. This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. Today on the show, what higher interest rates and a more expensive yen could mean for Japanese consumers, global markets, and the lifeblood of the global economy, those allimportant US government bonds.

My colleague Juan Ha, who hosts the Big Take Asia, talked to Bloomberg's Paul Jackson earlier today, hours after the BOJ hiked rates. Now, the Bank of Japan just increased its base rate a quarter point to 1.25%. Paul, you're there in Tokyo. How are investors and consumers reacting to the move?

I mean, if you're an investor in any of the mega banks in Japan, this is good news because how do banks make uh money? Well, one of them is through uh borrowing and lending uh money. So, if you got the interest rate higher, banks usually do well. So the big uh mega banks uh those stock prices will all be going up. So if you're investing in those it's good. But essentially it feeds in to the idea that Japan's economy is back and Japan is a place to invest in again.

Now if you go to uh consumers well let me ask you the question. Are consumers anywhere in the world happy when interest rates go up? Well usually no. Now, the Bank of Japan Governor Kazu Oa says this rate hike is about upside risk. So, inflation in other words. What's the inflation picture in Japan like right now?

If you look at the inflation picture now, it's looking a lot more subdued than it did uh when we were in like 2023 when inflation's over 4%. At the moment, the inflation is actually below the 2% target of the Bank of Japan. So it might be a little bit subdued now, but uh economists, the Bank of Japan are all kind of thinking it's going to be above 3% as we get into early next year. So um you know a lot of economists always say you got to get ahead of the curve uh on inflation because once you get to high levels of inflation becomes difficult to bring them down.

Now the word that probably best describes the Japanese economy for the last 30 years or so is stagnation. The Bank of Japan kept rates around zero for most of that time to try and stimulate the economy. But recently things have changed, right? Base interest rates have risen over the last 2 years to 1%. So I want to ask you Paul, what state is the Japanese economy in today?

Well, a lot of people like to say Japan is back and in many respects Japan is back. We do have inflation again. We do have uh yields uh going up that aren't being manipulated by the country for its economic policy. We have uh stocks going up and and the nation becoming like a destination for investment. So in that respect, Japan is is back. However, if you look at the economy in detail, is there evidence that we have a really fast growing economy now?

It's materially different to how it was a decade ago. I'm I'm afraid the answer is no.

Now, not every country sees the need to hike rates right now. The Bank of England is on pause, for example. So, why is Japan doing it and raising rates?

We have fears that the inflation is going to start accelerating again. That's point number one. Point number two, we have this incredibly weak yen. At one point, it was at its weakest in 40 years. that was in July. Uh do governments want to be intervening, stepping in, buying yen in the market to prop it up? No. That isn't a great solution to the problem of the yen. And I think the other factor here uh that cannot be taken out of consideration is the United States Treasury Secretary.

He's really being uh going almost over the top uh with his overt show of American power and influence on global policym. Can Japan totally ignore that pressure? Oh no.

Now Japan carries a lot of debt. Its gross debt to GDP ratio is anywhere between 180 to 250% depending on how you measure it. What are the risks associated with increasing rates in Japan? Right now,

the government's debt is twice the size of Japan's economy, which is like the first largest economy in the world. The debt is actually bigger than that. So, um, in terms of debt repayments, that already takes up about a quarter of the annual budget.

So, if the interest rates go up, then that's making servicing that debt more expensive. Now, Japan's Prime Minister Say Takichi has said that she wants to spend to stimulate the economy. What is Bank of Japan Governor Kazu Uea's plan and how does that mesh with what the prime minister wants?

UEA's goals are to control inflation in a way that we have a positive growth cycle. So, he doesn't want to be snuffing out inflation and snuffing out growth. No, no. He wants inflation to stay there. It's this idea that an inflation that's stable around 2% is a positive for the economy because people behave differently if you've got inflation. If you got prices going up then you need to spend now. You need to buy that television set now or the a fridge or freezer whatever uh you know air dryer you need to buy it now because it's going to be more expensive down down the line.

So it promotes activity. I mean, if the governor can control inflation to a certain extent, that keeps voters off the prime minister's back because it eases the cost of living pressures. So, it it can be good in that respect, but then it increases her borrowing costs. So, if it goes too fast, that makes it very expensive for the government to issue debt. And there's another thing is if the Bank of Japan raises interest rates too quickly, it could snuff out growth in the economy.

Now that would cause the prime minister tremendous problems because she is at the moment trying to convince investors across the world that Japan is not a basket case of like incredible debt. A quarterpoint move might not sound dramatic, but Japan is not just another economy raising interest rates to fight inflation. For decades, low rates meant global investors borrowed yen to buy higher yielding investments elsewhere.

So, when borrowing becomes more expensive, who gets hit and how badly? That's after the break. The big focus for central bankers all over the world right now is inflation. That includes Japan, which for 30 years was worried about the opposite dynamic, deflation. Think declining prices every year instead of rising ones. Japan kept its rates close to zero to try and stay out of that spiral, but ended up creating another problem, a weaker yen.

Today's decision is aimed at boosting the yen. But as Bloomberg's Paul Jackson tells my colleague Wanha, there's a catch

now. Paul, we can't talk about Japa

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