The Bank of Japan held rates steady again, narrowing the window of opportunity to hike before year’s end as it waits for clarity on the impact of tariffs and a political leadership change in Tokyo, the Wall Street Journal reported. In a widely expected move, the central bank maintained its overnight call rate target at 0.5%, extending a pause since its last hike in January. That leaves one more chance to resume tightening this year: at the bank’s final meeting in December. BOJ Gov.

Nine months after its last rate hike, it’s decision time again for the Bank of Japan, the Wall Street Journal reported. On policymakers’ minds: persistent inflation, the worrying impact of U.S. tariffs, and shifts in domestic politics. At a two-day meeting ending Thursday, which comes on the heels of President Trump’s first summit with Japan’s new prime minister, Sanae Takaichi, the central bank will mull rate-hike options and release fresh economic projections.

Nidec, already mired in a deepening accounting crisis, now faces the risk of being delisted after the Tokyo Stock Exchange said on Monday that it will apply special oversight to the company, Bloomberg News reported. The manufacturer of precision motors has been designated as a "security on special alert," starting Tuesday, the TSE said in a statement. That kicks off a potentially yearslong process in which Nidec must show an internal management system that’s adequately developed and implemented. If the exchange sees no improvement after follow-up periods, the firm may be delisted.

On July 22, Ryosei Akazawa, then Japan’s minister in charge of tariff negotiations with the United States, was sitting across from President Trump in the Oval Office. Mr. Trump, deploying a familiar negotiating style, began crossing out numbers on a placemat-size visual aid. After eight trips to Washington, Mr. Akazawa had worked out the outline of a plan with Mr. Trump’s trade officials. But in the final meeting, the president upped the ante. Mr. Akazawa went along with the new demands. Japan walked away with lower-than-threatened tariffs.

Japan's manufacturing sector contracted in October at the fastest pace in 19 months due to a sharper decline in new orders, a private-sector survey showed on Friday, Reuters reported. The S&P Global flash Japan Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 48.3 in October from a final reading of 48.5 in September, hitting the lowest since March 2024. It has remained below the 50.0 threshold that separates growth from contraction for four straight months.

Japan’s exports rebounded in September, snapping a four-month run of declines despite U.S. tariffs in a positive sign for the economy, but one that is unlikely to dispel concerns about the longer-term impact of trade policy, the Wall Street Journal reported. Outbound shipments rose 4.2% from a year earlier last month, bouncing back from August’s 0.1% decline, finance ministry data showed Wednesday. Still, the September print undershot the 5.7% rise expected in a poll of economists by data provider FactSet.

A plan to cull the smallest listings on the Tokyo Stock Exchange is spurring a record number of buyouts of young companies in Japan, reflecting Tokyo’s push to create more billion-dollar startups to better match the country’s global standing in scientific research, the Japan Times reported. Regulators are ratcheting up pressure on startups to gain more scale before debuting on the stock market, warning that the TSE will seek to delist companies that fail to reach a market value of at least ¥10 billion ($66 million) within five years of going public, starting 2030.

Bank of Japan board member Hajime Takata said the time is ripe for raising the bank’s policy interest rate, looking past political instability to reiterate his conviction after he dissented from a decision to hold policy steady last month, the Japan Times reported. "I believe that now is a prime opportunity to raise the policy interest rate,” Takata said Monday in a speech to local business leaders in Hiroshima.

Japan is poised to rewrite the rules of crypto oversight, moving to curb crypto insider trading as part of a broader push to bring digital markets into its orbit, Decrypt.com reported. The country's Financial Services Agency plans to empower its market watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission, to police illicit crypto trades, in a shift that could reshape global standards for market integrity. The framework is slated to be finalized this year and submitted to parliament by 2026.