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The weekend brought a story from Nikkei, Japan’s leading domestic financial news service, that the Bank of Japan is about to end negative rates with its first hike since 2007. It’s as well to take this seriously. As we commented last week, waiting over the years for Japan to beat deflation and raise rates has been rather like hoping for Lucy to let Charlie Brown kick the football, but if the BOJ is briefing the press like this, it must be a very real possibility.