Pressuring currencies

One of the most immediate channels through which a tighter Fed policy travels around the world is the dollar.

Higher U.S. rates support the greenback while putting pressure on other currencies, as major assets such as oil and natural gas as well as agricultural commodities are priced in dollars.

That “does create stresses around the world,” Zandi said, particularly for economies whose currencies or monetary policies are closely tied to U.S. rates.

Japan is one market in focus. A weaker yen could add to the case for further tightening by the Bank of Japan, he elaborated. “It does put pressure on Japan to continue to follow suit and raise interest rates as well,” he said.

Navin Saigal, BlackRock’s head of global fixed income for Asia Pacific, echoed that the market’s hawkish interpretation of the Fed meeting “may put some pressure on Asian currencies and bond markets in the near term.”

Currency weakness can also complicate central banks’ inflation fight by raising the local-currency cost of imported goods.

That comes as oil prices have already risen sharply due to the Middle East conflict, creating the prospect that some economies could simultaneously face higher energy costs, weaker currencies and elevated interest rates.

Influencing policy

The Fed’s shift also comes as several major developed-market central banks are in the process of tightening policy.

The European Central Bank raised rates by 25 basis points last week, while J.P. Morgan Asset Management expects the Bank of Japan to increase rates by a quarter point this week.

“Developed market central banks are in sync with tightening monetary policy to address inflation concerns,” said Tai Hui, APAC chief market strategist at J.P. Morgan Asset Management.

Higher rates-led rise in Treasury yields also raises prospects of capital outflows from other markets into the U.S., creating pressure on central banks to respond.

Still, Fed’s move do not necessarily mean a synchronized global hiking…

The Bank of Japan is likely to raise rates to 1.25% at the end of its two-day meeting on Friday amid inflationary pressures, according to a CNBC survey. 

A hike would signal an acceleration of the tightening cycle, faster than the six-month interval the Bank has been following since it started policy normalization in March 2024. The BOJ last raised rates in June. 

Around 89% of respondents said they expect the BOJ to hike by 25 basis points, citing higher inflation, higher wages, and pressure from the U.S. government. 

Japan’s headline inflation rate for July hit its highest this year, at 1.9%, due to increased energy costs from the Iran war. In the same month, real wages rose 2.4%, rising for the seventh month in a row. 

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told BOJ Governor Kazuo Ueda to take “decisive market and monetary steps” at the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meeting earlier this month.

Bessent later posted on social media that they discussed the importance of anchoring inflation expectations and avoiding excess volatility in exchange rates. 

“The Trump administration has effectively checked any potential move by a Takaichi administration to block the Bank of Japan from raising interest rates,” said Takahide Kiuchi, executive economist at Nomura Research Institute and former BOJ policy board member. “Consequently, the Bank of Japan has gained a free hand to proceed with rate hikes.”

BOJ board members have also made hawkish comments, leaving open the possibility of accelerated rate hikes.

The CNBC survey was conducted Sept. 9-14 among 18 economists and analysts. 

The outliers:

• Jesper Koll, expert director at Monex Group, said he sees the BOJ hiking by 50 basis points in a “one and done” move. 

• Carlos Casanova, senior economist for Asia at UBP, expects the BOJ to stand pat for now, though he thinks it is behind the curve and eventually expects two 25 basis point hikes every six months. “Data doesn’t yet support a regime shift,” he said, so there is “insufficient visibility to justify a faster pace of rate hikes. Iran tensions and oil prices remain the main risk.” 

Asked which BOJ board members are most likely to dissent on a hike, around a third of respondents named Toichiro Asada and Ayano Sato. Both are seen as reflationists and were appointed by Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi earlier this year. 

As for the yen, around 61% of respondents said they expect it to trade between 155 and 160 in the next month. 

Homin Lee, senior macro strategist at Lombard Odier, said the BOJ’s hawkish shift will help keep the yen stronger than 160. But appreciating it past 150 “will not be easy” because government and business officials will push back against “inappropriately” fast currency appreciation, he said. 

— CNBC’s Lim Hui Jie and Sri Jegarajah contributed to this report.

Hold on to your consoles — the Nintendo Switch 2 is about to get more expensive.

The price for the Nintendo Switch 2 in Canada will increase as of Sept. 1, Nintendo said in a news release Friday, jumping to $679.99 Cdn from its current price of $629.99.

Nintendo said it was raising the Switch 2 price in Japan to 59,980 yen, effective May 25, from 49,980 yen, “in light of changes in market conditions and after considering the global business outlook.”

Company president Shuntaro Furukawa said higher component costs, along with factors including exchange rates, were reflected in Nintendo’s decision.

All major Japanese exporters are having to cope with U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff hikes and other higher costs that have been worsened by the war in Iran.

Nintendo and Sony are also both grappling with the impact of ​surging memory chip prices, Reuters reports, as the artificial intelligence boom constrains chip supply and deepens disruptions across the tech sector.

Memory ‌chip prices doubled in the first quarter alone from the previous quarter and are forecast to climb up to 63 per cent in the current quarter due to AI data centre demand that has impacted supply for smartphones, laptops and automobiles.

Nintendo said that higher component costs, particularly memory, and the impact of tariffs is expected to ​add roughly 100 billion yen ($874 million Cdn) to costs in the current financial year.

“The very fact that Nintendo felt compelled to act [price ⁠increase] suggests the rise in memory costs has become severe enough that it could no longer be absorbed internally — and, crucially, that there is little prospect of those ​cost pressures easing in the near term,” HSBC analyst Kazunori Ito told Reuters.

“This decision likely reflects a sober assessment that waiting for market conditions to improve is not a ​viable option.”

With the price hikes, profitability will be roughly unchanged from last financial ​year, Furukawa told an earnings briefing.

Switch 2 demand holds up

Nintendo recorded a 424 billion yen ($3.7 billion Cdn) net profit for the fiscal year that ended in March, up from nearly 279 billion yen the year before.

Annual sales rose 99 per cent to 2.3 trillion yen ($20.1 billion Cdn) from 1.2 trillion yen a year earlier, as demand for Switch 2 held up, although sales for the first-generation Switch declined.

Nintendo Co., which did not break down quarterly results, expects an 11 per cent decline in profit for the fiscal year…

The popular online gaming platform Fortnite is hiking the price of its in-game currency starting Thursday, a rare move that experts say sheds some light on the cost of its parent company’s antitrust battles against tech giants Google and Apple.

“The cost of running Fortnite has gone up a lot and we’re raising prices to help pay the bills,” a March 10 statement on the game’s website said.

While the game itself is free to play, Fortnite makes money from in-game purchases — including its signature “V-Bucks,” a currency that players can use to buy new “skins” or other status symbols.

The changes are global. If you’re in Canada, the company will start charging the same price for fewer V-Bucks — so, an $11.99 pack that used to buy 1,000 V-Bucks, for example, will now buy 800 V-Bucks, a spokesperson for parent company Epic Games told CBC News.

For years, Epic has waged antitrust battles against Google and Apple, accusing them of anti-competitive behaviour by taxing developers with a commission on in-app purchases, sometimes up to 30 per cent.

Fortnite was swiftly removed from both the Google Play Store and Apple’s App Store when Epic attempted to bypass the tax in 2020.

Google eventually lowered its fees in a major settlement and opened itself up to competitors, including the Epic Games store, potentially helping Epic offset some legal costs.

The case against Apple is still ongoing. A judge initially ruled in 2021 that it can charge a non-prohibitive fee if its link to alternative payment methods, but found in 2025 that the company violated her order. Apple then lost its appeal of that decision.

Epic Games has “done a big favour for the whole industry by fighting these antitrust cases for six years, losing all of the [potential] revenue for Fortnite on mobile during that time,” said Dean Takahashi, editorial director at GamesBeat, a gaming news outlet.

It might take some time for the company to re-establish a consumer base on mobile platforms after such a long absence, he added.

As for the prices changes, “they’re just sort of giving you less for the money you are giving them, right? Perhaps that’s the correct way to do this without angering too many people,” Takahashi said.

Fortnite last hiked global prices in 2023 and 2021.

Player hours down in 2025

Stephen Totilo, a reporter who covers the gaming industry through his Game File newsletter, pointed out that it’s difficult to say definitively whether or why Epic Games, a private company, might be hurting financially.

It’s estimated that Fortnite generates billions in annual revenue, though that number appears to have been falling between 2021 and 2023.

“Fortnite is still one of the biggest video games in the world, but Epic did say that player hours on it in 2025 were down, compared to 2024,” Totilo wrote in an email to CBC News. The company’s 2025 year in review said…