21 Jul 2025

Amid a quiet start to the week, the Japanese yen is finding modest support even after Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba’s governing coalition lost its majority in the Upper House, suggesting that currency markets had largely priced in the outcome ahead of yesterday’s vote. The Liberal Democratic Party—dominant in Japanese politics for all but five of the past seventy years—shed 16 of the 66 seats it defended, as both new and established opposition parties capitalised on public frustration over surging living costs. Wages have lagged behind inflation since the pandemic, and rice prices—arguably as central to Japan’s inflation psychology as gasoline...