Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The major indices are limping along, little changed from their closing levels as neither buyers nor sellers are showing much conviction at this point.

Not the case in the currency market where participants have been actively selling the dollar and propping up the euro (EUR/USD +1.0% to 1.0517), the British pound (GBP/USD +1.1% to 1.2483), and the Japanese yen (USD/JPY -0.2% to 155.71).

The yen has been supported not only by the Bank of Japan's decision today to raise its key policy rate by 25 basis points to 0.50%, but also by the bank's seeming bias to keep raising rates if there is no change in its outlook. On a related note, the Bank of Japan raised its CPI forecast to 2.4% from 1.9%.