The first central bank meetings of 2025 suggest it will be a year in which policymakers go their own way as economic paths diverge, as the United States holds interest rates steady, the euro zone cuts,

The Fed said the job market is “solid,” and noted that the unemployment rate “has stabilized at a low level in recent months.”

TwentyFour Asset Management co-head of investment grade Gordon Shannon said the impossibility of predicting Trump's policies had prompted him to favour bonds issued by domestically focused European banks, utilities providers and telecoms groups whose interest payments were reliable.

Giving explicit advance signals, in addition to making the Bank of Japan feel boxed in, could breach Japanese law stipulating the nine-member board must debate and sign off on rate decisions at each policy meeting.

Asian shares advanced Friday after U.S. stocks rose to a record and the Bank of Japan raised its key lending rate.

Wall Street stocks retreated Friday as the market's latest rally lost steam, while the yen pushed higher after the Bank of Japan lifted interest rates. In Japan, Tokyo's stock market dropped and the yen rallied after the Bank of Japan lifted borrowing costs to their highest level since 2008 and flagged further increases in the pipeline.

The Bank of Japan raised interest rates on Friday to their highest since the 2008 global financial crisis and revised up its inflation forecasts, underscoring its confidence that rising wages will keep inflation stable around its 2% target.

Mapmakers and teachers are re-thinking what to call the gulf of water between Mexico, the United States and Cuba after President Donald Trump ordered it renamed from the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.

The Bank of Japan raised interest rates on Friday to their highest since the 2008 global financial crisis, underscoring its confidence that rising wages will keep inflation stable around its 2% target.

Asian markets rose Friday after a record day on Wall Street in response to Donald Trump's tax-cut pledge, while the yen strengthened after a widely expected interest rate hike by

US stocks rose on Thursday, with the Nasdaq (^IXIC) and S&P 500 (^GSPC) eyeing a comeback as investors digested news that the US economy expanded slower than economists had expected in the last three months of the year.

TOKYO (Reuters) - The fading shadow of reflationists in the Bank of Japan, and the latest addition to the board of an academic favouring an end to ultra-low interest rates, will likely bring the central bank's thinking closer to global peers taking a more conventional approach on monetary policy.