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.

The return of inflation and wage growth is giving the Bank of Japan room to raise interest rates and declare the end of a long period of stagnation.

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Japan's central bank raised interest rates to their highest since the 2008 global financial crisis and revised up its inflation forecasts.

The Nikkei stock index snapped a five-day losing streak Thursday on optimism over the U.S. economy as hopes grew for further interest

Tokyo, Jan 24 (AP) The Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate to about 0.5% from 0.25% Friday, noting that inflation is holding at a desirable target level. The decision by the central bank came at the end of a two-day policy board meeting in Tokyo.

U.S. stock futures and Asian shares outside China slumped on Monday as investors weighed the implications of Chinese startup DeepSeek's launch of a free, open-source artificial intelligence model to rival OpenAI's ChatGPT.

An interest-rate decision by the Bank of Canada is due Wednesday, on the same day as the U.S. Fed's decision. A 25 basis-point rate cut is widely expected, although the pace of rate reductions is expected to slow markedly compared with last year.

After the BOJ caught markets off guard with December's decision, Governor Kazuo Ueda flagged uncertainty over U.S. economic policy ahead of Donald Trump's return as president as a key reason it had refrained from raising rates. Considered dovish, Ueda's comments pushed down market pricing of January action to 46% from 70%.

Shares were mixed in thin Asian trading on Monday after U.S. stocks edged back from their all-time high. Oil prices fell and U.S. futures sank, while Chinese shares shed some of their early gains after a survey of manufacturers showed export orders dropping to a five-month low.

Japan's central bank has raised its key interest rate to about 0.5% from 0.25%, noting that inflation is holding at a desirable target level.

U.S. stocks are pulling back from their all-time high, but are still on track to close out a second straight winning week. The S&P 500 fell 0.4% on Friday, a