This is Bloomberg day Break Weekend, our global look at the top stories in the coming week from our day Break anchors all around the world. And straight ahead on the program, the Fed decides J Powell and Company make a key interest rate decision. I'm Tom Busby in New York.
I'm Kathie Lyons in Washington, where President Biden is preparing to head to New York for the UN General as Sunday.
I'm Caroline Hepga here in London, where we're looking ahead to the next Bank of England rate decision.
I'm Doug Prisner. Inflation in Japan is above target. Now it's up to the Bank of Japan.
That's all straight ahead on Bloomberg day Break Weekend. On Bloomberg Eleve them three own New York, Bloomberg ninety nine to one, Washington, DC, Bloomberg one O six one, Boston, Bloomberg nine sixty, San Francisco, DAB Digital Radio London, Sirius XM one nineteen and around the world on Bloomberg Radio dot Com and via the Bloomberg Business App.
Good day to you. I'm Tom Busby, and we begin today's program with the Federal Reserve meeting again this week, after nearly two months since the last MED decision, in which J. Powell and Central bank policymakers raised their benchmark lending rate to a twenty two year high. So will the Fed hit pause again or is there another rate hike in the cards. We'll find out Wednesday and for more we're joined by Bloomberg International Economics and Policy correspondent
Michael McKee. Now, before we take a deeper dive into the data, the FED is looking at what are you expecting to see from the FOMC this week?
I think I go with the consensus on Wall Street that the Fed will pause. They gave every indication in their speeches, those who did speak since the last meeting that they are not in a hurry to raise rates again. They leave it on the table, but not in a hurry. And so they've created a consensus on Wall Street that they're not going to do anything and they would be loath to surprise investors.
Let's talk about rates and where they are right now. We're at a range of five and a quarter to five and a half percent. That's a twenty two year high, right, and how high can they go?
Well, they've only said that they would go one more time, and that may change at this meeting, but if they did, they'd go up to a range of five and a half to five and three quarters percent. But of course, if inflation continues to rise and they don't feel like they have tight enough to bring it down, they could go higher than that. Some people were predicting earlier this year that they'd get to six or six and a
quarter percent. Jim Bullard, who just left the FED after that last meeting, had predicted in his June dot plot that they'd go to six and a quarter percent. So it's very possible that we haven't seen the end of it. It will just depend on the progress against inflation.
We saw some inflation data this past week, some good, some of it not so good. Let's talk about what happened in August month over month and what was behind that big increase.
Well, the big increase came in the CPI headline numbers, so we saw it in the PPI as well, the Producer Price Index. The oil prices pushed up, gasoline prices that pushed up the headline numbers. Overall, the core went down though, particularly for the CPI, and that is what the Fed's focused on. Because they know they can't affect the oil price.
They can't.
They can raise raise all I want, but they're not going to bring down the price of gasoline by doing that. So they're focused on the core, and the core gave them some evidence that they're still making progress. Slow, but there is still progress.
And that core year of a year was the biggest decline in two years, so there is progress.
It's definitely progress, and now they need to keep that going. The question is do they need to raise rates further to keep the momentum going or are they at a tight enough spot now that it already keeps the pressure on.
Let's go to the labor market. Still strong, initial jobless claims edging a little lower, surprising some economists. There's a lot of labor strife though.
There is labor strife now with the United Auto Workers out on strike, but you won't really notice that too much in the data for a while. The strike began during the reference week for the September payrolls report, so since the workers were at work for most of that week, they won't fall off of the payrolls numbers for September if they still on strike in October. Is a good chance, then we would see a decline in the number of
people who are at work in manufacturing. The other aspect of it is that if you are on strike, you're not eligible for unemployment benefits. Twelve seven hundred workers are actually on strike, but there's one hundred and forty six thousand United Auto Workers. If other plants are shut down because those few workers are out, then all those people could file for unemployment benefits and we'll know it's a strike.
So the FED won't be too upset about it, but it'll certainly make it hard to get a read on the numbers from the jobless claims.
On the other hand, the Writers Guild strike it started May TEWOD has really ballooned to other industries that are sitting idle in Hollywood. You have the sag after strike compounding that you see that show up in the unemployment data.
Yeah, the people who are collateral victims of the strike don't get counted as jobs lost. But the strikers are only just in the last month or so beginning to get counted in terms of number of jobs lost in the motion picture industry and things like that because they had irregular paychecks. Most of them are freelancers, and so they don't get paid in the same way that other workers do, so it's harder for the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
To count them now. Despite inflation still a problem, retail spending held up pretty well in August. You talked about fuel prices being a big part of that increase, but still Americans are spending.
Americans are spending. Gasoline went up five point two percent, a big jump, and that of course means people had less to spend on other things, but they spent anyway. It really was a sort of traditional back to school month of August, as clothing store sales went up by nine tenths. We also saw a rise in personal care as people went out and got their back to school haircuts and things like that. And we saw electronics rise people buying computers for their kids to go back to school,
and calculators and things like that. So it was kind of the spending that you would expect for an August, which is good news for the fat Now.
Housing long term mortgage rates still above seven percent at a two decade high. Adjustable rates just hit a twelve year high. Still a problem in housing.
It is a problem in housing, particularly for existing home sales because so many people, something like forty percent of mortgage holders now have mortgages under four percent, and they don't want to get a new mortgage that's at seven or eight percent, so they're not putting their homes on the market, and it's sort of frozen the housing market, which then leads to fewer sales of new carpets and
appliances and things like that. So that's a problem. The new home sales market has been booming because it's the only place you can get a house these days, and a lot of the builders have come up with their own financing and they're buying down your mortgage rate so you don't have to pay eight percent, you might pay five. We don't know if that's going to be enough to keep it going, but for right now that's the only bright spot in housing.
According to b Redfin, the average mortgage costs two six hundred and thirty two bucks a month. That's the highest ever. Not even prices on those houses, but mortgage rates and insurance making that change. Car insurance, we know, went up nineteen percent in August year over year.
Well, particularly with cars insurance. Cars have gotten much more complex and more expensive to fix. We also saw a big rise obviously in used car prices and more used cars break down. People were buying used cars because there weren't new cars to buy. So for the insurance companies, their costs have gone up a lot and they've been raising rates to make up for that.
Now, staying on autos, how do you think a protracted job action might impact the economy.
Well, in the past, we have not seen huge macroeconomic effects. You see them for a very short period of time. Nineteen ninety eight was a very similar year to what
we're seeing right now. There was a strike against General Motors, but it was called against only two plants and only nine two hundred workers went out, but that shut down GM around the country, so there were about two hundred thousand people who were off work, and you can see in the auto manufacturing statistics there's a big drop in the third quarter of nineteen ninety eight, and in the number of workers there was a big drop in the
third quarter of nineteen ninety eight. But plot GDP over that and you don't see it because as soon as the strike's over, the company gets back to producing cars as fast as as it can, and Americans are still going to be buying cars, and the people who were striking get raises and go out and maybe spend a little bit more, So you end up with it not
having a major macro effect. Where you do see it is in equities, because it not only affects the automakers but the parts makers and their stocks drop, and it spreads beyond that raw materials makers steel and rubber. And then in nineteen ninety eight, the New York Times saw a decline in revenue because automobile advertising was pulled during the strike. So if you're looking for an effect, that's probably where you're going to see it more than in the macroeconomy.
Well, Michael, thank you. Bloomberg International Economics and Policy correspondent Michael McKee. Coming up here on Bloomberg day Break weekend. Leaders from around the world gather in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meeting. Will tell you what to expect next week. I'm Tom Busby and is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg Day Break Weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week.
I'm Tom Busby in New York. The United Nations General Assembly holds its seventy eighth Annual Session the week of September eighteenth, leaders from around the world descending upon New York for what's expected to be the most interesting UNNGA since before the pandemic, with a focus on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, shadowed diplomacy with Iran, and the increasingly tense geostrategic divide between the US and China. General Debate begins on Tuesday. For more, Let's head to our Bloomberg ninety
nine one newsroom in Washington and Bloomberg Sound On. Co host Kaylee.
Lines, Yeah, Tom, Well, everyone in New York is bracing for heavier traffic associated with the annual UN General Assembly meeting, fondly known as UNGA. Washington is watching to see what real policy developments could come out of this gathering, and Bloomberg TV's very own chief Washington correspondent, Anrie horder And will be making the trip up there herself this coming week. She joins me now with more of a preview. So Anri, let's just talk about what the objective here really is.
For President Biden, for example, he's gonna make the trip, what exactly does he want to achieve?
I think what you'll see this year, Kaylee, is similar to what we saw from President Biden last year. Some of these major themes he wants to address in front of the international community. One of course, is going to be Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He talked about this last year. He said it's a war where Russia wants to extinguish
Ukraine's right to exist. You're going to see him want to really continue to ramp up the support in favor of Ukraine against Russia at the international community, especially when Russia will be in the room, not by President Putin, but far Missus Sergei Lavrov will be there. Of course, China will be the other elephant in the room. Shijiping is also not going to be in attendance. Both those leader Putin and she didn't also go to the G twenty.
But this is a chance for Biden to show that the US is in that presence, even those other leaders are not going to be there. Once again, I think you'll hear from the American President and from any American official that's asked about China, they continuously say, it's not that we want to have a conflict with China. We want to be able to have competition and put guard rails around that competition. It's becoming a little bit of a joke. But everyone in DC says what they constantly say.
They're not decoupling, they're risking. If you're able to figure out the difference between those two, let me know. And then I think the final big point that the President may talk about is going to be Iran, because I have some reporting that the Iran hostage swap will happen as soon as Monday, and that's just before these leaders
come together. And you have Ibraham Rayisi speaking to NBC News before the UN General Assembly saying that this unforen fund of six billion dollars that's going to be released in exchange for the prisoners, it is Iranian money, but it was frozen in South Korea. He's saying that they can use it on whatever they need in Iran. The administration continues to say that is not true. It's for
humanitarian purposes only. And imagine, given the fact that's happening likely on Monday, the President's going to have to address this.
Okay, so Iran will be on the agenda for him, perhaps an unavoidable subject. But to go back to the idea of this also really being about China and Russia. How complicated is that considering they are also permanent members of the UN Security Council. Does that hinder what can actually be achieved it to something like this, well, I think.
It hinders what the UN has been able to achieve at all regarding Russia's invasion of Ukraine. They're members of Security Council. The UN hasn't been able to act on this war. So while the UN General Assembly offers a place for dialogue, there hasn't been a lot of action when it comes to that, which is why many people
say the UN. Many call it obsolete and useless. But it will be a place for dialogue, but at the moment nothing can really happen because you do have Shijipang and Russia's hold on the Security Council.
So you say it's a place for dialogue, and obviously that is you know, wider dialogue among the entire General Assembly. But also we often see at meetings like this sideline meetings between different leaders, and our understanding is President Biden maybe having a few of those as well, including with reportedly Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu, who has had a pretty tense relationship with the President of the US. At this point, I would argue, Anne Marie, what do
we expect out of that meeting? Why have that one.
So right now? You have not had net Yahoo yes yet have this invite to the White House. He and Joe Biden go years back. They know each other, They've been in this circle for a while. But the issue is, of course, the White House has taken aim on a number of policies the net Yahoo government has wanted to push forward, especially coming from the right wing of his government, most notably the judicial overhaul plan. So this is gonna be the first time they're seeing each other in person
since he took office again in December. All eyes are going to be on this meeting, not only because these two individuals will be meeting and there's been some some of that tension you just mentioned, but also the fact that this administration is working at the same time to
try to bring normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel. They were just at the G twenty they did this infrastructure deal, which Saudi Arabia is a part of, Israel is also tangently a part of, and everyone is trying to see if this can actually happen, So this will be an interesting pull aside meeting. But it's also interesting that it's not a White House meeting. It's happening at Anga. Also, apparently net and Yahoo will also be meeting Elon Musk
next week. He's doing a little bit of a US tour that might be just as interesting as the POTUS meeting.
To go back to what you were talking about earlier, with the idea of some kind of normalization happening, you of course spoke this past week with Amos Hawkstein of the White House and you touched on this a little bit. How close realistically are we.
I think there's some cold water on that, meaning the US has been very honest that they would want to see that extension really of the Abraham Accords that were done to the Trump administration, where you saw a number of Gulf countries, notably the UAE, have these normalized ties with Israel. Travel started, embassies opened, lots of commercial ties came to fruition after that. But they're just not there yet.
There's a number of steps that have to happen, but it's still on the table, and it's something that could happen. I just think you know, potentially we're a little over our skis if we think that might happen at this U and General Assembly or before the year is up. I think that a lot of work needs to still be deciphered through, and then they really need to make sure they're selling it to their constituents.
So when we're talking about selling thing, and this goes back to the Ukraine issue, which you said is going to be high on the agenda for Biden, I just wonder how much harder that job is in a body like this one full of those who come from different countries and are looking in on the US and the conversation happening here in Washington on Capitol Hill around continued funding for Ukraine, and what that does to the President's position is he's trying to make the case that other
countries should be still engaging, still funding, still trying to support the war, when it's clear that not everyone here in Washington is with him on that.
It's going to be challenging for the President because he's going to want to come to the podium and he's going to want to be so forthright about America's stance in supporting Ukraine. At the same time, he will be in New York City at the UN giving this speech. There's going to be debates behind Congress closed doors whether or not they're going to sign off on his request
and that supplemental funding request for aid for Ukraine. It does look like the Senate wants to go forward with that, but in the House it's really anyone's guest on how it gets done. Does McCarthy have to remove it from the supplemental put it with maybe border concerns to make sure the hard right flank of his party joins in and votes for it because they see something enticing and border money and potentially some controversial what the Democrats would
call controversial asylum provisions. So Ukraine is this issue where not just in Congress, but on the debate stage Republican candidates, you see people taking different points of views. And President Lenski is going to be really honest when he's also in New York next week and he wants to make this case for a peace formula plan. And then Reuter's also reported that he's going to come to Washington to have another meeting with the President, and the timing, of course,
is interesting. Zelenski obviously sees and is privy to the debate that's ongoing in America and on how long and how much Americans are willing to fund and support Ukraine.
Looking forward to all of your coverage of UNGA, Bloomberg's and Marie Hordern, our very own chief Washington correspondent for Bloomberg Television, and Tom we'll send it back to you.
Thank you, Kaylee. That was Bloomberg Sound On co host Kaylee Liones reporting from our Bloomberg ninety nine one newsroom in Washington, and you can hear sound on weekdays one to three pm on Bloomberg Radio. Coming up on Bloomberg day Break. Weekend interest rates also in focus overseas, we take you to London to preview the Bank of England's policy decision this week. I'm Tom Busby and this is Bloomberg broadcasting.
Live from the Bloomberg it a Active Brokers studio in New York. Bloomberg elemon three oh to Washington d C, Bloomberg ninety nine one to Boston, Bloomberg one O six one to San Francisco, Bloomberg nine sixteen to the country, Sirius XM Channel one to nineteen to London DAB digital radio and around the globe the Bloomberg Business app in Bloomberg Radio dot com. This is Bloomberg Daybreak weekend.
This is Bloomberg day Break weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. I'm Tom Busby in New York. Bloomberg Economics expects the Bank of England to continue raising interest rates to five point five percent next week, despite signs of the impact on the economy. Now for more, let's say to London and bring in Bloomberg Daybreak Europe banker Caroline hepgar Tom.
As the UK's economic outlook gets cloudier, the debate about whether the Bank of England will continue raising interest rates and for how long is intensifying. UK inflation remains the worst in the group of seven nations, but July saw a bigger than expected drop in UK economic growth. Remember, although the UK was the first amongst major central banks to start raising interest rates, inflation in Britain is stuck at six point eight percent according to the August figure.
That is almost double the level that you're seeing over in the US, and it's still well above the eure Area rate of five point three percent. Now for more, on all of this. Tom McKenzie and I have been speaking to Blueberg Senior at UK Economists Dan Hansen about the Bank of England's upcoming decision. I started by asking Dan how badly the UK is losing steam after monthly GDP fell by half of one percent in July.
We're certainly worried that the economy is losing steam a little bit faster than we'd anticipated it would. Obviously, you would expect this to happen to some extent given the scale of the interest rate rises that we've had, but I think it might be happening a little bit faster.
And yeah, so we're looking.
We're not looking for We're still looking for the economy to expand very modestly in the third quarter, but I think moving into the fourth quarter we're still expecting a contraction. I think the other thing to remember is that the forward looking data isn't looking that great either. So we've had that August PM I remember that dropped into recessionary territories.
So we are we think we're.
Sort of on the edge, if you like, we're sort of we're we're sort of balancing between sort of stagnation, which is what we've had over the past year and potentially moving into contraction. And as you said at the start there, that's making it very difficult for the Bank of England as it navigates what to do next.
So potentially getting and looking at a contraction of recession here in the UK. The debate, of course in the US is all about a soft landing. That's never really been part of the narrative here in the UK. What kind of what would that recession look like, dad? How prolonged, how deep, how painful?
Yes, I mean, I think when we look at all of this through just through the eye of an economic model, the amount of tightening that's come from the Bank of England, so we've had over five hundred basis points of tightening. If you put that through an economic model, you get a very very big hit to GDP, something in the region of five percent of GDP hits.
It's enormous.
Now, we obviously just haven't had anything like that. We've had the economy has been stagnating, so it's been doing a lot better than models would tell you.
The less there are these.
Lags in the system, and we know that there is more to come, and the Bank of England's obviously been quite open about this, and it partly reflects the way the mortgage market works in the UK, and I think we think there's going to be, as I say, a recession, a peach trough falling GDP of about one percent. Now, as I say, I've sort of spoken about sort of model side of it there. In terms of historical context,
that's also extremely small. So if you think about the financial crisis, it was over six percent the falling GDP, in the nineties it was about three percent, and in the eighties it was about four and a half percent, so it's.
Still very very modest.
Nonetheless, we still think, and you know, the data of the recent data's given us a little bit more confidence in this view that the economy is heading for a period of falls in output.
How significant was the revision to the official data, the OERNS data post pandemic. I was speaking to the Exchequer sector, to the Treasury, Gareth Davies's significant voice obviously for the government, and he was sounding pretty pleased about it. Does that lead though, to any sort of rethink on future or longer term UK economic growth?
So the way we read it, and I'm not surprised. The government has sort of been very happy about.
It, because, of course, the first thing to say about the revisions, I should say is that this is all the way up to the end of twenty twenty one, so we've had nothing about twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three, so we've had nothing really about the impact of high inflation and high interest rates and whether the economy may have been more resilient in the face of that.
So we just don't know.
The story still looks pretty poor on the data that we've got.
What I took away from it looking at it was that.
Actually the economy was less scarred from the pandemic, So the hit to the economy from the pandemic, the sort of permanent hit to output, was less severe, and that's obviously.
A really really good news story.
And actually going back to the government, it was a reflection of the policy that were put in place, in particular the furlough scheme, So I think it tells us something about the past. We'll be watching it's at the end of September we'll get more information about the more recent data points, so we'll definitely be watching that to see if the economy actually has been carrying more momentum and we have been too downbeat about the UK.
What is your sense, Dan, of the inflation trajectory for the UK. Are we seeing a meaningful move lower in terms of prices. Are we on a sustained trajectory to lower prices that have been flagged by the Bank of England.
Yeah, I mean I think you know, Tom, I think it's been all about energy here, and we know that it takes a little bit longer for the energy effect to come through because of the way household energy bills work and they enter the CPI basket. I mean, I still think we're going to get to about five percent by the end of the year.
Do you think that we should be concerned around the housing market? I mean, that's another sort of element of this economic picture. It does look as if the housing data, as a result of our interest rates is worse than quite quite rapidly rapidly.
Now, Yeah, I mean I think we should. I mean, I think that's and it's the bit you know, it's one of the most interest rates sensitive bits of the economy and it's exactly where you would expect these rate hikes to show up first.
And we've been seeing that we've had, you.
Know, we think there'll be a fall accumulative fall of about ten percent in house prices. We've had about a little bit underhalf of that if you look at the nationwide figures, so we think there's further to go.
But yeah, it's it absolutely is a concern.
And of course here in the UK at least, there is a there is a real link between housing confidence and spending and that's where it will start to bite, is that if consumers start to feel worried about the fact that the value of their house is falling, even though it doesn't really affect their wealth, they just feel less well off. Then yes, you know, there's potentially be a bigger hit through sentiment to spending. So yeah, it's something we're definitely watching. And you're right, I mean, we
had the Rick survey. It looks like things are beginning to sort of snowball a little bit in the housing market. So it's something to definitely keep.
An eye on and done.
I wonder how closely the Bank of England are going to be focused on the housing sector as well. We know that traders have started to kind of pair their bets around the terminal rate from the Bank of England, but arguably we've had a few mixed messages from officials there, whether it's Andrew Bailey talking about table mounted along with you, Peel, or Catherine Mann who's on the hawkish spectrum of the NPC.
Do you have clarity, do you have a clearer steer on how the Bank of England is thinking about everything that you've talked about and weaving that all together to have a clearer projection.
Yeah, so I think, I mean you're I think you're right that the particularly Baileyan pill that feels like a bit of a shift.
And I think the thing to remember with them is as.
Well is that they're in they're part of the internal group with Ben Broadbent that tends that.
Will have voted together during this hiking cycle.
And I think the fact that they're shifting away from potentially the pace of rate hikes and the fact that we need rate hikes to focusing more on the level of rates and the level of the extent to which rates are restrictive is something that certainly traders and certainly
we have taken notice of. I mean, going into the September meeting, I think the story around wage growth is going to dominate, and I think there's definitely something there's definitely good reason to think they will lift rates in September, and I think the market sort of is pretty much there with that. I think it's pricing about an eighty percent chance of a hike.
That was Bloomberg's Chief UK economist Dan Hanson speaking to Tom McKenzie and I ahead of the Bank of England's interest rate decision, and we'll be covering that rate decision at twelve noon London time on Thursday the twenty first, and the day before will break the latest UK inflation data. That's live on Bloomberg Radio on Wednesday the twentieth, expected at seven am London time. I'm Caroline Hepke here in London and you can catch us every weekday morning for
Bloomberg Daybreak Europe, beginning at six am in London. That's one am on Wall Street.
Tom, Thank you, Caroline, and coming up on Bloomberg day Break weekend, we stay on Interest Rate Watch as we go to Asia to preview the Bank of Japan's policy decision. I'm Tom Busby and this is Bloomberg. This is Bloomberg day Break Weekend, our global look ahead at the top stories for investors in the coming week. I'm Tom Busby in New York. Bank of Japan watchers moving forward their
forecast for an end to negative interest rates. That's after Governor Kazuo Uwaita touched on that possibility in a recent interview. So what's next for the BOJ ahead of their next policy meeting. For more, Let's head to Bloomberg day Break Asia host Doug Krisner. Tom.
The Bank of has a rate decision in the week ahead, and markets have been speculating on the BOJ possibly taking steps to adjust policy. The question is whether that bet is a bit premature. Let's bring in Paul Jackson, Bloomberg Economy editor, who joins us from our studios in Tokyo. BOJ policy we know has been ultra easy for decades now, largely because of the story on deflation. But for the last seventeen months it's a different story. Inflation in Japan
has been above the boj's target. So is there a bit of urgency now to begin normalizing.
Well, I think we're certainly stepping closer to that day. We have a meeting coming up, but there's going to be no major change at this coming meeting, but after recent remarks from Governor Uda to local media, definitely the scrapping of negative interest rates is now on the radar, with economists expecting that to happen in the first half next year.
So that would be the policy rate. Now we talk about yield curve control quite a bit, So if why CC were to be adjusted, what might the preparation for normalcy look like on that front.
Well, it's a complicated framework, isn't it. We've got two targets here, one for the short term rate, which is currently minus zero point one percent, and then we've got this target for a ten year yields, which is normally zero, but yields are going to be allowed to rise up to one percent. So I think before we can have a scrapping of the negative interest rate, that target on the ten year yield needs to be abandoned or raised. Now the question is would he do it all in
one go. I think that is a possibility, though some economists argue that they'd have to address this ten year yield target first and then move to the negative rate next year.
So the BOJ tweaked yield curve control back in July, and it was there that Governor Uwaita said the move was aimed in part by limiting a lot of the volatility that we had seen in the Japanese en. How does the currency enter the thinking here when it comes to tweaking policy.
Well, I think, you know, if you look at the weakness in the end recently, it's getting to a point where you know, businesses are, you know, having difficulty planning for the future. Consumers are being hit by higher import prices, which is driving inflation. So we're kind of at the limit of what is acceptable on the yen level as
we know. September last year, after the FED met and the BOJ met, Japan intervened to prop up the currency for the first time since nineteen ninety eight, I think that's less likely this time because we haven't had quite the sudden moves. People are more used to these yen levels this time around, and also I think a Bank of Japan Governor Huaida is a little bit more willing to talk about FX and give the impression that the boj may give the government a helping hand on helping support the currency.
So when intervention is conducted, it's done under the auspices of the Ministry of finance that's different than the Bank of Japan. I understand that, but I'm wondering whether or not Governor Auwada has a level let's say in the end visa viv the dollar, that is, he's keeping a close eye on ha ha.
Well, all these motheretary authorities are very reluctant to talk about levels. They say it sudden moves. But I would say that the last intervention on October last year came around the one to five to two mark, so I think it'd be very difficult for Japan to move before we've got there.
Paul, thank you so much for helping us set up the BOJ meeting. In the week Ahead, Paul Jackson, Bloomberg Economy Editor, joining from Tokyo. I'm Doug Prisner. You can join Brian Curtis and myself weekdays here for Bloomberg day Break Gasia, beginning at six am in Hong Kong six pm on Wall Street.
Tom, thank you, Doug, and that does it for them this edition of Bloomberg day Break Weekend. Join us again Monday morning at five am Wall Street time for the latest on markets overseas and the news you need to start your day. I'm Tom Buzzby. Stay with US. Top stories and global business headlines are coming up right now