BoJ April minutes: Three members wanted to move in April; the rest caught up by June

2026年6月19日最近のFX関連情報Central Banks

The minutes are retrospectively hawkish given that the BoJ has since moved to 1.00%, validating the three dissenters who argued for exactly that level in April. The more significant market signal is the board's near-unanimous recognition that underlying inflation was approaching 2% and that real rates remained deeply negative, a framing that keeps further normalisation firmly on the table. With Hormuz now reopening and crude prices retreating, the specific Middle East risk premium that gave the majority cover to hold in April is fading, which arguably clears the path for the pace of hikes to resume. USD/JPY's sensitivity to any BoJ communication is heightened in this context.

--- BoJ's April minutes showed a 6-3 vote to hold at 0.75%, with three members pushing for 1.00%, as the board flagged upside inflation risks and deepening price-pass-through from energy costs. (190 chars)

Full text: Bank of Japan minutes of the April 27-28, 2026 monetary policy meeting:

Summary:

The Policy Board voted 6-3 to hold the overnight call rate at 0.75%; dissenters Nakagawa, Takata and Tamura each proposed raising to 1.00%, citing upside price risks, second-round effects, and the need to move toward the neutral rate
The majority held on grounds that Middle East uncertainty made the baseline scenario harder to assess, not because they disputed the inflation direction
CPI ex-fresh food was running 1.5-2.0% at the time of the meeting but the board projected 2.5-3.0% for fiscal 2026 as energy cost pass-through accelerated
Members broadly agreed that firms' price-setting behaviour had shifted structurally, with wage pass-through widening beyond large firms to smaller enterprises following Rengo spring negotiations showing around 3.5% base pay increases
The board flagged that inflation expectations, while not yet as anchored as in the US or Europe, had risen to approximately 2% and were at risk of deviating further upward if crude prices stayed elevated
Several members noted the neutral rate remained some distance away and that the pace of hikes may need to accelerate if upside price risks intensified

The Bank of Japan's April minutes, released Friday, read less like a record of a hold decision and more like a staging post on the way to the June hike that followed.

The 6-3 vote to keep the overnight call rate at 0.75% masked a board that was, in substance, broadly aligned on the direction of travel. The three dissenters, Nakagawa, Takata and Tamura, argued for an immediate move to 1.00%. Their reasoning varied in emphasis but converged on the same core view: underlying inflation was close enough to 2%, real rates were deeply negative, and waiting carried more risk than moving. Tamura was the most direct, arguing the bank should position the policy rate as close to neutral as possible given the upside skew in price risks.

The majority's case for holding rested almost entirely on Middle East uncertainty rather than any disagreement about the inflation trajectory. Several members acknowledged that CPI excluding fresh food was likely to reach 2.5-3.0% across fiscal 2026 as energy cost pass-through accelerated through supply chains. They noted that firms' price-setting behaviour had shifted structurally since the post-Ukraine period, with a wider range of sectors, including dining-out and public transportation, actively passing on personnel and distribution cost increases. Spring wage negotiations had delivered around 3.5% base pay increases not just at large firms but at smaller enterprises, reinforcing the wage-price dynamic the BoJ had long sought.

The board also flagged a risk that had not been prominent in earlier meetings: that inflation expectations in Japan, historically adaptive rather than anchored, could overshoot if crude prices remained elevated. Several members noted this distinguished the current episode from the 1979 oil shock, when wage and price responses were contained. The institutional memory of that comparison was doing work in the room.

With Hormuz now reopening and the BoJ having moved to 1.00% in June, the April minutes are most useful as a guide to what comes next. The dissenters' framework, move early, move toward neutral, do not wait for perfect clarity, appears to have carried the board. Whether the pace of further adjustments accelerates will depend on how quickly the energy shock fades from the inflation print.

Not that there seems to be much need for a fade: