Japan remains firmly stuck in deflation.......but BOJ holds off from further easing.

 Japanese consumer prices dropped in March for the fifth consecutive month, with CPI falling by a slightly greater-than-expected 0.5%. Prices for furniture, culture and recreation, and food showed the largest drops As expected, the Bank of Japan held off from adding to its liquidity blitz at a policy meeting today, having announced a plan earlier this month to increase its monetary base by ¥60T ($607B) to ¥70T a year. In its semi-annual economic outlook, the BOJ forecast that inflation won't hit 2% in the next two years, as Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has predicted, but could reach that level by March 2016. At the time of writing, the dollar was -0.6% at ¥98.69.