Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda:

  • BOJ has various tools at its disposal if it were to ease, including expanding supply of money, increasing market operation tools and cutting rates
  • we will take sufficient, necessary steps at the time, if we were to ease further
  • don't see need now for BOJ to buy municipal bonds
  • BOJ's JGB buying is aimed at stabilising bond market, achieving 2% inflation target
  • once price target is achieved, boj's ultra-loose policy will be modified
  • I can promise you that BOJ will absolutely not create a situation where its unlimited bond buying triggers unwelcome levels of inflation

Senior BOJ official:, Executive Director Uchinda

  • don't have any preset idea now on how long BOJ will keep buying ETFs at 12-trln-yen per year pace, will do so for as long as needed with eye on market moves
  • various steps BOJ has taken so far to combat pandemic, including paced-up etf buying, are all temporary measures
  • BOJ holds roughly 5-6% of Japan shares via its ETF buying, which has book value of around 30 trln yen as of end-March

USD/JPY dropped to circa 107.50 earlier and still trading around that level.