but they did not increase the bond buying.
but people shouldn't see this ETF buying as BOJ owning half of Japanese stock market.
why? see: http://www.etf.com/etf-education-center/7540-what-is-the-etf-creationredemption-mechanism.html
with the disappointing stimulus and the market reaction to it, this might have been the best action by the BOJ resulting in a pause of the bond yields collapse and pause in yen strengthening.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-28/owning-half-of-japan-s-etf-market-might-not-be-enough-for-kuroda
Japan’s central bank already owns more than half of the nation’s market for exchange-traded stock funds, and that might just be the start. The Bank of Japan will boost stimulus on Friday, according to 16 of 36 economists in Bloomberg’s latest survey, with 12 saying it would do so by increasing its annual ETF-buying budget. With 3 trillion yen ($25 billion) a year in existing firepower, the BOJ has accumulated an ETF stash that accounted for 52 percent of the entire market at the end of September, figures from Tokyo’s stock exchange show.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-24/the-tokyo-whale-is-quietly-buying-up-huge-stakes-in-japan-inc
They may not realize it yet, but Japan Inc.’s executives are increasingly working for a shareholder unlike any other: the nation’s money-printing central bank. While the Bank of Japan’s name is nowhere to be found in regulatory filings on major stock investors, the monetary authority’s exchange-traded fund purchases have made it a top 10 shareholder in about 90 percent of the Nikkei 225 Stock Average, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg from public data. It’s now a major owner of more Japanese blue-chips than both BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, and Vanguard Group, which oversees more than $3 trillion.
They may not realize it yet, but Japan Inc.’s executives are increasingly working for a shareholder unlike any other: the nation’s money-printing central bank. While the Bank of Japan’s name is nowhere to be found in regulatory filings on major stock investors, the monetary authority’s exchange-traded fund purchases have made it a top 10 shareholder in about 90 percent of the Nikkei 225 Stock Average, according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg from public data. It’s now a major owner of more Japanese blue-chips than both BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, and Vanguard Group, which oversees more than $3 trillion.
The central bank said in December that it plans to buy additional ETFs that weigh holdings based on metrics that include research spending and employee wage growth, but it hasn’t started those purchases yet because the funds don’t exist.
https://next.ft.com/content/4fd7dd18-5523-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3c60
“The BoJ clearly disappointed the market today with neither an increase in the amount of Japanese government bonds to be bought or a further cut in the policy rate,” said Michael Moen, a portfolio manager at Aberdeen Asset Management in Singapore.
“The measures announced today to increase ETF purchases and to increase the USD lending programme will not have a material impact on the inflationary outlook,” he said. The BoJ cut its forecast for inflation in the year to March 2017 from 0.5 per cent to 0.1 per cent but kept its forecast for the following year unchanged at 1.7 per cent. The decision to keep policy on hold came after new data showing Japan is still mired in deflation, with prices down 0.4 per cent on a year ago in June.
