Bank of Japan keeps its options open

The Bank of Japan’s decision to bring forward its November Policy Board meeting to the day after Wednesday’s FOMC raises the intriguing possibility that the Bank intends to respond to any additional quantitative easing in the US with further QE of its own. But with some Japanese officials concerned that QE will fuel asset price bubbles and others worried that it amounts to the monetisation of government debt, the yen would probably have to surge again to prompt the Bank to announce more than the ¥5 trillion already planned.