Gold Prices Fall Amid Rate Jitters; Copper Steady as China Stimulus Eyed 
The Japanese government bonds traded nearly flat Thursday following modest buying demand by the investors at the 10-year auction, held on Wednesday. Also, investors remain keen to focus on the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) December monetary policy meeting minutes, scheduled to be released on February 3.
The benchmark 10-year bond yield, which moves inversely to its price, hovered around 0.09 percent, while the long-term 30-year bond yields rose nearly 1 basis point to 0.84 percent and the yield on the short-term 2-year note traded around -0.22 percent by 07:00 GMT.
The auction for the 2.4 trillion yen (USD21.30 billion) 10-year bonds on Thursday failed to attract strong investor demand amid uncertainty over the BoJ’s monetary policy.
At the Monetary Policy Meeting held Wednesday, the Policy Board of the BoJ decided to keep its short-term policy interest rate at -0.10 percent, while purchasing Japanese government bonds (JGBs) so that 10-year JGB yields remain at around zero percent mark.
Further, the central bank in its quarterly economic outlook report mentioned that the Japanese economy is likely to continue growing at a pace above its potential through the projection period, i.e., through FY2018 on the back of highly accommodative financial conditions and the effects of the government's large-scale stimulus measures, with the growth rates in overseas economies increasing moderately.
Also, the central bank revised up its estimate of Japan’s real gross domestic product (GDP) to +1.5 percent for FY2017/18, compared to +1.3 percent projected in November, for FY2018/19 at +1.1 percent, against the +0.9 percent projected in November.
Meanwhile, Japan’s Nikkei 225 closed 1.11 percent lower at 18,923 while at 7:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly Yen Strength Index remained neutral at 35.44 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex
