Institution reviews Bank of Japan's interest rate decision: The opposition vote and the decision to sell ETFs came as quite a surprise.

Sompo Institute Plus Senior Economist Kotaro Koike: The decision to vote against and sell ETFs came as a surprise to many. However, given the limited scale of these actions, I believe they will not have a significant impact on stock prices in the medium to long term. Having a clear path for handling ETFs is an important turning point. The Bank of Japan is discussing this possibility. Considering future inflation and the limited opportunity for rate hikes, if Hayashi is elected, the likelihood of rate hikes will be greatly reduced. Therefore, taking these factors into account, the Bank of Japan is somewhat signaling its stance on rate hikes. Nevertheless, it will take time for data on the impact of Trump's tariffs to appear, so these conflicting factors will be future challenges.