Japan Inflation: Tokyo Consumer Price Index eases to 2.9% YoY in August vs. 3.0% expected, USD/JPY edges higher

Early Friday morning in Asia, the Statistics Bureau of Japan released monthly prints of the Tokyo Consumer Price Index (CPI) for August.

That said, the headline Tokyo CPI eases to 2.9% YoY from 3.2% prior, versus 3.0% market forecasts, whereas the Tokyo CPI ex Fresh Food, Energy remains steady with 4.0% YoY readings.

More importantly, Tokyo CPI ex Fresh Food eased from 3.0% to 2.8% for the said month compared to analysts’ estimations of 2.9%.

USD/JPY bulls ignore mixed Japan inflation 

Following the data, USD/JPY marked an immediate pullback from the intraday high to 145.98 but refreshed the intraday high with 146.07 afterward. 

Also read: USD/JPY rebounds above 145.00 on Fed hawkish comments and high US yields

About Tokyo CPI

The Tokyo Consumer Price Index is released by the Statistics Bureau and it's a measure of price movements obtained by comparison of the retail prices of a representative shopping basket of goods and services. The index captures inflation in Tokyo. CPI is the most significant way to measure changes in purchasing trends. The purchase power of JPY is dragged down by inflation. Generally a high reading is seen as positive.