in accordance with the guideline for money market operations decided at the monetary policy meeting held on april 30. the outstanding balance of current accounts is recently moving at around 25 - 27 trillion yen. under these circumstances, the overnight call rate continues to hover at very close to zero percent. longer - term interest rates remain steady at low levels. yields on long - term government bonds declined and were temporarily moving at the 0. 5 - 0. 6 percent level, as banks and institutional investors have further increased investment in government bonds since the start of the new fiscal year. yield spreads between private bonds ( bank bonds and corporate bonds ) and government bonds are contracting further due mainly to the increase in corporate bond investment by institutional investors. stock prices plunged temporarily toward the end of april reflecting uncertainty regarding the domestic economic outlook and concern over the worsening supply - demand situation in the stock market, but they have since recovered following the recovery in european and u. s. stock prices. the nikkei 225 stock average is recently moving at around 8, 000 yen. in the foreign exchange market, the yen appreciated reflecting the ongoing weakness of the u. s. dollar due mainly to concern about increasing fiscal deficits and current account deficits in the united states. the yen is currently traded in the range of 115 - 118 yen to the u. s. dollar. with regard to corporate finance, private banks remain cautious in extending loans to firms with high credit risks while they continue to be more active in extending loans to blue - chip companies. recently, their lending attitudes seem to be becoming slightly more accommodative in areas such as interest margin charges. meanwhile, the lending attitudes of financial institutions as perceived by firms, particularly small ones, remain severe. in the corporate bond and cp markets, the issuing environment for firms with high credit ratings continues to be accommodative, and the environment for firms with relatively low credit ratings seems to be improving slightly. credit demand in the private sector continues to follow a downtrend mainly because business fixed investment is at low levels and firms are continuously reducing their debts. amid these developments, private banks ’ lending continues to decline by about 2 - 3 percent on a yearon - year basis, but the rate of decline is contracting slightly. the amount outstanding of corporate bonds and cp issued is moving at around the previous year ’ s level. meanwhile, according to business surveys, financial positions of firms, particularly those of small firms, remain severe. the year - on -

- series applications, to semi - structural econometric frameworks in which the natural rate is a latent variable, to fully structural, though extremely simplified, models ( such as overlapping - generations or dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models of the new keynesian tradition ). for a recent survey and estimates of r star for both the united states and the euro area, see neri and gerali ( 2019 ). see, for example, lane ( 2022a ) and panetta ( 2022 ). the variety of methodologies used by the ecb is reported in panetta ( 2022 ) and described in the references mentioned therein. for recent considerations on the relevance and use of the natural rate see hernandez de cos ( 2022 ) and villeroy de galhau ( 2022 ). even if long - term inflation expectations are still anchored and wage growth remains moderate, the high level of inflation and the need to increase the extremely low values achieved by short - term interest rates in real terms require policy rates to continue to rise. the high uncertainty surrounding the economic prospects, however, suggests prudence in setting the “ pace ” of the rate hikes and strongly advises against committing to a pre ‑ determined terminal point for official rates. our future decisions will therefore continue to follow a meeting - by - meeting approach and will be data - dependent – meaning, however, that they will not simply be dependent on current data, but will instead continue to assume a forward - looking orientation, based on the economic perspectives of the euro area as a whole, over the medium - term. as in other tightening cycles, we will have to discover the terminal rate by proceeding gradually. this does not mean that quantitative assessments cannot be made, based on the experience accumulated to date ; on the contrary, they would be certainly useful for estimating the effects of rate increases on aggregate demand and changes in the costs and prices of goods and services. 16 however, we will have to take these assessments into account together with the information that will gradually become available on inflation expectations and on the evolution of labour income and profits. in any case, today i do not see any obvious reason to tie our hands with hypotheses of extraordinarily high increases, such as those that can be sometimes read, in some cases extrapolating the more recent decisions or the experience of other countries. * * * to conclude, since the introduction of the euro, we have always shown our willingness to invest