The Bank of Japan on Thursday reaffirmed its view that the economy will keep to a moderate recovery despite high global economic uncertainty, while leaving its policy interest rate unchanged, as expected. The central bank kept the interest-rate target in its current range of 0% to 0.1% by a unanimous vote. In a statement issued at the end of a two-day meeting, the central bank said the year-on-year change in consumer prices isn't expected to rise or fall for the time being. The Bank of Japan reaffirmed its commitment to steadily increasing the size of its asset purchase program, but didn't announce any immediate increase in the overall size of the program on Thursday. The yen dropped sharply immediately after the decision but quickly recovered most of those losses; the dollar USDJPY -0.64% was buying ¥79.60 yen from ¥79.53 yen before the central-bank announcement. Japanese stocks initially rose as well, but soon moved sharply lower, with the Nikkei Stock Average JP:100000018 -1.48% trading down 1.3% amid a regional stock sell-off. MarketWatch
