The Weak Yen and Japan’s Fragile Economic Turning Point, Explained

Something’s stirring in the world’s fourth-biggest economy. After decades of growth slow enough to make deflation the central bank’s biggest worry, Japan’s prices and wages are rising. Its stock market, too. Even interest rates have gone up for the first time in 17 years — they’re actually slightly positive now.

It’s a hint of the return to normal the Bank of Japan has been trying to engineer after a quarter-century of unusual policies aimed at stoking inflation — and the stronger economy that usually comes with it — rather than crushing it. But the BOJ’s reaction to this change has been cautious, and the price of its slow pivot has been a weak yen.