BOJ Opts for Limited Stimulus Expansion, Plans Policy Review
- Board expands ETFs; no change to bond purchases, negative rate
- Kuroda calls for comprehensive assessment of the BOJ’s policy
BOJ Expands Purchases of ETFs to 6T Yen
The Bank of Japan kept its key monetary tools unchanged, and will mount a comprehensive review of its policy framework due to "considerable uncertainty" about the outlook for inflation, which has consistently underperformed the central bank’s forecasts. The yen jumped.
Governor Haruhiko Kuroda and his team did enlarge a program of buying exchange traded funds by 2.7 trillion yen ($26 billion) a year, in a move to shore up confidence in light of post-Brexit volatility in financial markets and a slowdown in emerging markets. A dollar-lending facility was also expanded, the BOJ said in a statement in Tokyo Friday. Kuroda reiterated that further easing will be done if needed and said the central bank hasn’t hit a policy limit.