There had been a number of domestic and international policy announcements on the month, some of them substantial, to which markets had on balance reacted positively. By and large, there had been little change in prices of safer assets, but the prices of riskier assets had generally continued to rise. 3 There had initially been marked volatility in Japanese asset prices in response to the Bank of Japan’s 4 April announcement of a material increase in its asset purchase programme with the aim of doubling the monetary base within two years and raising inflation to its 2% target. Once markets had settled, and continuing ... (full story)