Bank of Japan adds to easing; yen falls sharply

Bank of Japan adds to easing; yen falls sharply

MarketWatch (04/4) - LOS ANGELES - The Bank of Japan satisfied markets with a host of new monetary easing Thursday that sent the yen tumbling and stocks paring their losses sharply. The central bank said it would introduce 'quantitative and qualitative monetary easing,' with steps including hiking purchases of Japanese government bonds to an annual pace of 'about 50 trillion yen' ($530 billion), buying bonds of all maturities rather than the previous three-year-from-maturity limit, increasing purchases of exchange-traded funds and real-estate investment trusts, and terminating its previous asset-purchase program. The stock market cheered the results, with the Nikkei Stock Average paring its 1.7% loss to a 0.3% fall. Likewise, the yen plunged, with the dollar shooting up to 93.70 yen in a matter of minutes from ¥92.90 just ahead of the result. http://www.marketwatch.com/story/bank-of-japan-adds-to-easing-yen-falls-sharply-2013-04-04