LONDON, March 19 Reuters The Japanese yen tumbled on Tuesday after the central bank made the momentous, but widely anticipated, decision to end its negative interest rate policy, while the dollar rose ahead of the upcoming Federal Reserve decision on rates.

In a historic shift from decades of massive monetary stimulus, the Bank of Japan BOJ ended eight years of negative interest rates and other remnants of unorthodox policy at the conclusion of a twoday monetary policy meeting.

Still, the yen tumbled 0.8 and weakened past the level of 150 to the dollar after the news, as most investors had already priced in a change.

The yen last stood at 150.39 to the dollar. Against the euro , the Japanese currency similarly slid more than 0.7 to bottom at 163.425, its weakest level in three weeks.

It39;s a classic 39;buy the rumour, sell the fact.39; I don39;t think the BOJ was going for the shockandawe approach this time, said Bart Wakabayashi, Tokyo branch manager at State Street.

With Japan39;s first interest rate hike in 17 years, the central bank said it would guide the overnight call rate its new policy rate in a range of zero to 0.1 adding that it expected accommodative financial conditions to be maintained for the time being.

That is likely to keep pressure on the yen, as interest rate differentials between Japan and the United States remain stark.

The market has taken it as a green light to increase the short yen positioning that was already in place, given the…