Lana

The Bank of Japan, BOJ, lifted its benchmark rate by 0.25 percentage points to 0.75% in a unanimous and fully expected decision, one that nudges the country's monetary policy further away from decades of ultra-easy money.

Even so, officials called rates significantly low and pointed to a future sweet spot between 1% and 2.5%.

That's a clear hint that there's room and intent to keep hiking if the economy holds up.

This keeps Japan as an outlier.

While the US, Europe, and UK are bringing rates down, Japan's opposite movement is a sharp turn, especially for an economy that spent decades worrying about too little inflation, not too much.

Investors read the move as steady normalization rather than as a shock.

They sent stocks up despite government bond yields hitting their highest levels in decades.

Higher interest rates would usually prop up a currency, but the Japanese yen is still hanging low.

See, foreign exchange traders watch the speedometer as well as the compass direction.

And with the BOJ taking it steady rather than hitting the gas, the yen's recovery might be parked for a while.

This rate hike should leave some Japanese households slightly better off, with banks finally paying more on savings after years of near-zero returns.

That mainly helps older households, who often have mortgages paid off and more money parked in deposits or bonds.

Younger households get the tougher side of the deal, higher borrowing costs and fewer savings to cushion the blow.

That's it for today.

I'm Lana.

I'll see you next week.

I was concerned about your vision to start with.

I'm confused on what kind of life you want me to have as your baby mama.

That makes sense to me.

I mean, you don't really like put yourself out there as a manager.