The Bank of Japan lifted interest rates to a 31-year high. Board members Toichiro Asada and Ayano Sato voted against it. This means seven people said yes and two said no. Congratulations to everyone who thinks they can trade this information.
Retail traders are now frantically googling "what does Bank of Japan do" and "is Japan bullish." They will find seventeen contradictory YouTube videos. Each one features a guy in a baseball cap pointing at lines. None of them will make money.
The split decision is apparently significant. Seven to two. A landslide by Supreme Court standards. A reason to panic by forex trader standards. Somewhere right now a guy with $847 in his Robinhood account is convinced he cracked the yen carry trade because he read the headline twice.
Asada and Sato dissented over inflation concerns. They flagged worries. They raised flags about concerns. They were concerned enough to flag it. The other seven members looked at the same inflation data and reached the opposite conclusion. Both groups have PhDs. Both groups are certain. Both groups get paid whether they're right or wrong.
This is a 31-year high. That means the last time rates were this elevated, it was 1995. Windows 95 just launched. You were worried about nothing. You will worry about this too, and it will also be nothing.
The yen moved. Then it moved back. Then it moved again. Technical analysts drew new lines on their charts. The lines will be wrong but they looked very confident drawing them. That confidence will cost someone their rent money.
Two dissenters out of nine voters means 22% disagreement on monetary policy. Retail traders have a 100% disagreement rate with their own trading journals.
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