At the end of the day, policy makers can and will spin the narrative to whatever they see fit with their decision. And with the BOJ these days, the reports released before their meeting seem to be the most important part of the narrative.
The latest inflation figures from Japan's capital here maybe today just keep things in balance. But such thinking goes against the message from BOJ governor Ueda himself here Last week.
That being said, he was careful not to outright rule out a move in January. However, he cast a lot of doubt on that and tried to suggest that they would be more comfortable waiting until March perhaps.
The Japanese yen is slightly higher today after the data but again, we are still caught in thin holiday trading. So, I wouldn't look too much into that. If traders have to rule out the possibility of a BOJ rate hike next month, there will be some scaling back to do for the yen. That is considering traders the price of the decision to be close to money for now.
