While the Fed may have ended QE3, Bank of Japan is nowhere near being done with its version of quantitative easing. Today, BOJ announced that it is taking
asset purchase programs to a whole new level:
“The BOJ will triple
the pace of its buying of stock and property funds, extend the average maturity
of its bondholding by three years to 10, and raise the ceiling of its annual
Japanese government bond purchases by ¥30 trillion to ¥80 trillion. As a
result, the BOJ’s target amount of annual asset purchases will rise to around
¥80 trillion ($730 billion) from the previous ¥60 trillion-¥70 trillion range.
Mr. Kuroda also appears to have pushed back the two-year target for achieving
2% inflation effectively to three years, saying he sees prices rising to that
level in the latter half of fiscal year 2015, which ends March 2016.”
Related,
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/01/upshot/what-the-bank-of-japans-surprise-move-means-for-the-global-economy.html
Deflationary Risk
Japan’s Economic Travails – Lessons for the West
Paul Krugman’s interesting column on Japan:
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/31/opinion/paul-krugman-apologizing-to-japan.htmlDeflationary Risk