Asian stock markets fall after BOJ rate decision

Asian stocks mostly lower after Bank of Japan rate decision Asia-Pacific stocks were broadly lower after the Bank of Japan kept its benchmark policy rate at minus 0.1%, in line with economists’ expectations. Japan’s central bank said it would continue to allow 10-year government bond yields to fluctuate between plus and minus 0.5%, adjusting its yield curve control stance. However, it “will conduct yield curve control with greater flexibility, using the upper and lower limits of the range as references rather than as hard limits in market operations,” it said. The Nikkei 225 fell 1.33%, while the Topix saw a smaller loss of 1.03%. In Australia, the S&P/ASX 200 fell 1.03% as the country’s retail sales fell 0.8% year-on-year in June, below economists’ expectations that retail sales would be unchanged from a year earlier. South Korean markets were more mixed, with the Kospi down marginally and the Kosdaq up 2.06 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng bucked the trend and rose 0.55 percent, while the Shanghai Composite Index fell 0.54 percent and the Shenzhen Component Index fell 0.87 percent. Overnight in the U.S., the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 0.67 percent to snap a 13-day winning streak, while all three major indexes slid. Separately, the Nasdaq fell 0.55 percent and the S&P 500 fell 0.64 percent.