Tuesday, February 03, 2009

Update on BoJ share purchases

BOJ may buy $111.5 billion in shares held by banks

"a midday announcement that the Bank of Japan will resume buying shares held by financial institutions, with plans to spend up to 1 trillion yen ($111.5 billion) through April 2010...The BoJ did not say when it would begin buying shares. It plans to halt the buying by the end of April 2010 and dispose of all shares it acquires by autumn 2017...

The last time the central bank had run a similar share purchase, it spent 202 billion yen purchasing shares from financial institutions during the 22 months ended in September 2004. At the time, the central bank had pledged to buy as much as 3 trillion yen of shares.

The BoJ began disposing of its holdings in October 2007 but suspended the program during the market slump last autumn. The central bank held 1.273 trillion yen of shares as of September 2008, it said in the statement."

This does nothing but distort equity markets and hinder rationalization of the country's economic structure.

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