Japan will choose a new Prime Minister on Friday

Japan’s ruling party will vote for a new leader on Friday who will almost-surely be the country’s Prime Minister shortly afterwards. Current PM Fumio Kishida has stepped down and the new leader may take a more-active role in directing the Bank of Japan.

There are nine candidates but three seen as leading candidates.

• Sanae Takaichi
• Shinjiro Koizumi
• Shigeru Ishiba

Sanae Takaichi is the lone woman in the race and would be the first female Prime Minister. She is a policy dove and wants the BOJ to keep rates low. “It’s stupid to raise rates now,” she said recently.

The others are more hawkish and have supported gradually raising rates.

So the straight-forward strategy is to sell the yen on Takaichi and buy it on anyone else.

The vote will take place Friday afternoon Tokyo time, with results of the first
round scheduled to be announced at 2:20 p.m. There will be a runoff if
the top candidate fails to win a majority, with the results to be
announced at 3:30 p.m.

This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.