Passive BOJ leaves investors wondering - Nikkei

As the Nikkei reports, market players are somehow bewildered to the recent Bank of Japan's inaction to meet its increased purchases of exchange-traded funds.

As Nikkei notes: "As part of additional monetary easing measures, the central bank decided July 29 to nearly double its annual purchases of exchange-traded funds from 3.3 trillion yen ($32.8 billion) to 6 trillion yen. The BOJ needs to buy around 25 billion yen of ETFs a day to meet the target. But it has failed to keep that pace, buying 40% slower than is necessary."

Some of the reasons behind the shortage of ETF purchases by the BOJ, mentioned by the Nikkei, are: 1 - A popular explanation focuses on a packed schedule for global monetary policy in the coming month or so. 2 - Challenges unique to trading stock-based ETFs could also be slowing the BOJ down, some say. 3 - The central bank could also be obfuscating the timing of its purchases to keep short-term traders from snapping up ETFs ahead of time.