Governor Kazuo Ueda marks his first anniversary at the helm of the Bank of Japan having dismantled one of the most ambitious stimulus experiments in central bank history with an approach that surprised analysts both for its speed and its success avoiding market ructions. When Ueda began his five-year term on April 9 last year, analysts warned of severe risks to financial markets if the new governor failed to tiptoe a fine line. At the time, the BOJ was a global outlier on policy, with its negative rate, massive asset purchases and yield curve control program. Ueda’s predecessor Haruhiko Kuroda had shown that the bank ... (full story)