Japan

Japan’s finance minister has issued a fresh warning to the currency market in the wake of Donald Trump’s election victory, which sent the dollar sharply higher against the yen, the Wall Street Journal reported. “We are watching developments in the currency market, including speculative moves, with an extremely high sense of urgency,” Katsunobu Kato said at a news conference on Friday.

The Bank of Japan’s governor struck a less cautious tone about the outlook as the central bank delivered a widely expected rate hold and reaffirmed that it’s on track for stable inflation and economic growth, the Wall Street Journal reported. The Japanese central bank maintained its target for the overnight call rate at 0.25%, the level reached after the last hike in July. Thursday’s decision came as no surprise to most BOJ watchers as Gov. Kazuo Ueda had flagged concerns about the uncertain global economic outlook and said that the bank needed to spend time analyzing risk factors.

Japan’s labor market tightened in September, indicating sustained pressure on companies to raise wages ahead of the Bank of Japan’s policy meeting this week, Bloomberg News reported. The job-to-applicant ratio edged up to 1.24 from 1.23 in August, meaning that there were 124 jobs offered for every 100 applicants, the labor ministry reported Tuesday. Economists had forecast no change from 1.23. A separate report from the ministry of internal affairs showed that the jobless rate decreased to 2.4% in September, falling to the lowest since January.

Funai Electric, a Japanese maker of audio and video equipment, received court approval for its bankruptcy plan on Thursday, credit research firm Teikoku Databank said, the Japan Times reported. Funai Electric, based in Daito, Osaka Prefecture, had some ¥46.1 billion ($303.6 million) in liabilities, Teikoku Databank said. Founded in 1961, the company had boasted a significant presence in Japan and abroad as an original equipment manufacturer.

Funai Electric, a Japanese midsize electronics manufacturer and Walmart supplier, has received court approval to start bankruptcy proceedings, it was revealed on Thursday, having fallen victim to intensifying competition with Chinese and South Korean manufacturers, Nikkei Asia reported. A quasi-bankruptcy petition was filed for Funai at Tokyo District Court. A normal bankruptcy petition is filed by the company itself, but when circumstances make that impossible, a company director or other party can file for quasi-bankruptcy in its place.

Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda said on Wednesday it was "still taking time" to sustainably achieve its 2% inflation target, signaling that the central bank will tread carefully in pushing up the country's still near-zero interest rates, Reuters reported. But he also warned of the cost of moving too slowly in raising rates, which could give speculators an excuse to trigger an unwelcome yen slide that pushes up import costs. "When there's huge uncertainty, you usually want to proceed cautiously and gradually," Ueda said at a panel at the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday.

After three decades of ultra-loose monetary policy, even small hikes in interest rates by the Bank of Japan are poised to fuel an increase in the number of zombie companies that could be tipped into insolvency, Bloomberg News reported. Bankruptcies topped 5,000 cases for the first time in a decade between April and September, a report by Tokyo Shoko Research showed earlier this month. Those 5,095 firms collectively account for almost ¥1.38 trillion ($9.2 billion) yen in debt, with the largest slice coming from the service industry.

Japan’s consumer-price inflation slowed in September due mainly to the impact of the government’s energy subsidies, possibly giving the Bank of Japan more time to think about the timing of its next move, the Wall Street Journal reported. Overall consumer prices rose 2.5% in September from a year earlier, compared with 3.0% growth in August, government data showed Friday. The pace of inflation slowed for the first time in five months as the government reintroduced its program to cut household utility bills.

The Japanese bankruptcy trustee overseeing funds from defunct Bitcoin exchange Mt. Gox has extended its payout deadline by yet another year. Many who’d looked forward to the end of October 2024 to find out if they’d receive a payout now have another year to wait—until October 31, 2025, CoinGeek.com reported. This was due to many remaining creditors still not receiving payouts, having missed key submission deadlines, or after encountering other issues in the process. At stake are the remains of Mt. Gox’s 2014 deposit pool of JPY698,246,328 and around 200,000 BTC.