Yen stays in tight range in Asian session after BoJ stood pat on monetary policies. Interest rate was kept near zero. The central bank also maintained the annual target of monetary pace expansion at JPY 80T. BoJ noted in the statement that "Japan's economy continues to recover moderately, although exports and output are being affected by the slowdown in emerging economies." It's expected that BoJ would ease monetary policy again due to weakness in the economy. Some economists predicted that based on current policy, BoJ could undershoot the inflation target by a lot as the developments unfold. Nonetheless, it's believed that BoJ might want to wait for Fed to act first before taking actions of its own.
The RBA minutes released in Asian morning sent a dovish message. Policymakers noted that Australia's economic growth was "below average" and "international developments "had increased the downside risks to the outlook". It is, however, too early to assess whether the growth outlook would be affected. The central bank was concerned that lower resource exports and soft commodity prices would weigh on the economy, although depreciation in Australian dollar and low interest rates was "expected to support growth, particularly through a larger contribution from net service exports". On a positive note, the central bank suggested that employment "continued to grow strongly in July and the employment-to-population ratio had increased to its highest level since 2013".
The economic data ahead is quite jam-packed today. UK will release both CPI and PPI inflation data. Eurozone will feature German ZEW, Eurozone trade balance and employment. From U, retail sales, Empire state manufacturing and industrial production will be released. But the main focus will remain on FOMC rate decision later this week. And reactions to these data could be muted.