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Fed & Monetary Policy

Reuters Poll Puts a Bank of Japan Rate Rise to 1.25% This Month

Economists surveyed by Reuters expect a hike on 18 September and a faster path to 1.75%, with the yen already at a seven-month high.

Assembled by Claude from 8 sources at 7 outlets · Thursday, September 10, 2026, Morning edition, 10:22 AM EDT · no human byline

Disclosure. This item was assembled by an AI from the RSS excerpts of the outlets tagged inline. No human wrote or checked it before publication. Feed selection and categories are editorial choices by Teresa Lo. Nothing here is investment advice.

What happened

The Bank of Japan will raise interest rates to 1.25% on 18 September and go on to 1.75% faster than previously expected, according to a Reuters poll of economists reuters.comwmbdradio.com. The survey was reported from Tokyo by Reuters and carried widely on Thursday wmbdradio.com.

Policy board members have been making the same case in public. Board member Kazuyuki Masu said the bank is expected to keep raising rates, flagging oil costs, food prices, producer prices and the weak yen as the pressures behind that view investinglive.com. Speaking in Fukui, a board member said the bank needs to raise rates further to complete policy normalisation nippon.com. A board member also said the bank will continue to raise its key interest rate to ensure it does not fall behind the curve news.cn.

Why it matters to investors

The currency has already moved. The yen traded around 153.4 per dollar on Thursday, close to its strongest level in seven months ahead of the expected decision tradingeconomics.com. The dollar was down 0.23% at 153.65 yen, not far from Tuesday's seven-month low of 152.89 asahi.com.

The funding question follows the currency. Reuters' market columnist put it directly: with the yen surging, what will fund foreign-exchange carry trades now reuters.com. The rally to a seven-month high has been driven by expectations of faster Bank of Japan tightening and by shifting bets about Japanese investors reuters.com. A funding currency that appreciates while its home policy rate is being raised is a different proposition for anyone borrowing in it reuters.comreuters.com.

That re-pricing runs through more than the yen itself. The board members quoted this week tie the rate path to oil, food and producer prices rather than to wages alone, which links Japanese policy to the same energy shock moving European and US inflation prints investinglive.com.

What to watch

The immediate marker is the 18 September decision and whether the bank matches the 1.25% the poll expects wmbdradio.com. After that the question is pace: the poll's second leg has the rate reaching 1.75% sooner than earlier surveys assumed reuters.com.

External pressure is part of the backdrop. The Reuters poll also canvassed economists on how far US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's comments on Bank of Japan policy had affected it reuters.com. Masu's list of price pressures gives the near-term checklist: crude costs, food, producer prices and the level of the currency itself investinglive.com.

Sources

  1. reuters.com: BOJ to raise rates to 1.25% this month, reach 1.75% faster than expected | Reuters (2026-09-10)
  2. wmbdradio.com: BOJ to raise rates to 1.25% this month, reach 1.75% faster than expected: Reuters poll (2026-09-10)
  3. nippon.com: BOJ Member Seeks to Raise Rates Further for Policy Normalization | Nippon.com (2026-09-10)
  4. investinglive.com: Weak yen, oil costs and food prices in focus as BOJ's Masu talks hikes - investingLive (2026-09-10)
  5. tradingeconomics.com: Yen Holds Near 7-Month High - Trading Economics (2026-09-10)
  6. asahi.com: Dollar trades near 7-month low against yen | The Asahi Shimbun (2026-09-10)
  7. news.cn: Bank of Japan to raise interest rate further, board member says (2026-09-10)
  8. reuters.com: With yen surging, what will fund FX carry trades now?: McGeever​ | Reuters (2026-09-10)