singapore shares in asiapacific looked set for a lower start on friday following sharp declines on wall street as investors weigh the possibility of aggressive monetary policy tightening leading to a recession futures pointed to a lower open for japanese stocks the nikkei futures contract in chicago was at 25750 while its counterpart in osaka was at 25670 against the nikkei 225s last close at 2643120 australian stocks also looked set to open lower with the spi futures contract at 6325 against the spasx 200s last close at 659110 shares on wall street fell sharply overnight with the sp 500 dropping 325 to 366677 the dow jones industrial average shed 74146 points or 242 to 2992707 the nasdaq composite lagged falling 408 to 1064610 the bank of japan is set to release its monetary policy statement at 1100 am hksin on friday we do not expect the boj to dump its 00 ‑25bp yield target on the ten year japanese government bond japans underlying inflation impulse is weak at around 1yr joseph capurso head of international economics at commonwealth bank of australia wrote in a friday note if the boj keep monetary policy unchanged the jpy and japanese swap rates and yields on jgb futures are likely to correct sharply lower capurso said ahead of that decision the japanese yen traded at 13261 per dollar stronger as compared with levels above 134 seen against the greenback earlier this week the japanese central banks decision comes on the back of monetary policy tightening by global peers earlier this week with the us federal reserve bank of england and swiss national bank all announcing rate hikes the us dollar index which tracks the greenback against a basket of its peers was at 103631 after a recent drop from levels above 105 the australian dollar changed hands at 07043 after a recent bounce from levels below 0702