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The yen plunged to its lowest level in nearly four years and showed no signs of slowing its weakening trend in response to the Bank of Japan's latest push to ease monetary policy. Investors have been aggressively selling the Japanese currency since policy makers at the BOJ announced last week they will print trillions of yen to pump money into Japan's sluggish economy in a bid to keep interest rates low and spark faster growth. "Both Japanese and non-Japanese investors appear to be selling Japanese government bonds equally aggressively," said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at Bank of New York...

Central bankers have gone totally mad. The stunning news of toady is a new pledge by Japan to double its monetary base in two years as the Bank of Japan Unveils Aggressive Easing. The Bank of Japan will aim to double the monetary base over two years through the aggressive purchase of long-term bonds, in a dramatic shift aimed at ridding Japan of the deflation that has dogged the country for almost two decades. Haruhiko Kuroda on Thursday announced his arrival as central bank governor with a “new phase of monetary easing”, a move that comes after Prime Minister Shinzo...

The Bank of Japan has launched the most daring monetary experiment of modern times, aiming to double the money base within two years to overpower deflation and catapult the economy out of slump. The blast of money is expected to reignite the yen “carry trade” and flood global markets with up to $2 trillion (£1.3 trillion) of pent-up savings, giving the entire world a shot in the arm. The BoJ’s new team under governor Haruhiko Kuroda voted 8:1 for a double dose of “quantitative and qualitative monetary easing”, vowing to inject stimulus for “as long as it takes” to break...

<p>This is it – the moment the Abenomics-watchers have been waiting for.</p> <p>Wednesday night, the Bank of Japan will conclude its first monetary policy meeting with new BoJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda at the helm.</p> <p>So far, Japan's great "Abenomics" experiment – which seeks to employ bold policy tools to overcome more than a decade of deflation – has been mostly talk.</p>

Apparently it takes a former Federal Reserve senior economist to ground everyone in reality. The European Union is no more and disintegrating rapidly: "The European project is crashing to earth,” Athanasios Orphanides told the Financial Times in an interview. "This is a fundamental change in the dynamics of Europe towards disintegration and I don’t see how this can be reversed.” ...This week’s events had made “a mockery” of EU treaties, he added. “It suggests that in Europe not all people are equal under the law.”“We have seen other eurozone countries, the Netherlands, for instance, put national interests ahead of the...