As Citi's Todd Elmer notes, today's BoJ outcome looks far closer to 'shock and awe' than disappointment. It appears the BoJ's actions may speak as loud as their words for now - JPY is weakening and the Nikkei is rallying after Kuroda's last shot at a first impression appeared to beat expectations (covering for disappointing macro data - despite six months of jawboning and a 20% devaluation). Expectations, though tough to extract given the range of possible actions, appeared centered on extending maturities of bond purchases, increasing the size (median expectations of around JPY5.2tn per month or 50% higher than in Q1), bringing forward the open-ended nature of the program, and increasing scope to foreign bonds and REITs. In his effort to do "whatever it takes", the BoJ is upping asset purchases, extending the maturity of purchases and merging its asset purchase program; increasing the size to JPY7tn and buy securities out to 40 years. Though no mention of foreign bond-buying was made, and increase in ETFs and REITs is included. They have given themselves a two-year window to achieve the 2% inflation goal - paging Kyle Bass - and ironically, as the news broke Tokyo was hit by a significant earthquake.

*BOJ INTRODUCES "QUANTITATIVE, QUALITATIVE MONETARY EASING''

*BANK OF JAPAN MERGES ASSET PROGRAM WITH REGULAR BOND BUYS

*BANK OF JAPAN TO BUY LONGER-TERM GOVERNMENT BONDS

*BOJ TO BUY 7T YEN OF BONDS PER MONTH

*BOJ SETS TIME HORIZON OF TWO YEARS TO ACHIEVE INFLATION GOAL

*BOJ CHANGES MARKET OPS TARGET FROM CALL RATE TO MONETARY BASE

*JAPAN QUAKE INTENSITY 4 IN CHIBA, NEAR TOKYO, NHK SAYS

Abe will be pleased with the initial kneejerk off Kuroda's words...

The Nikkei naturally knee-jerked higher too - but is fading back a little now...

ad naturally all risk-assets are bid on the wave of FX carry exuberance... see printing money does make things all better...

Though it seems the bigger the Fed balance sheet relative to the BoJ, the weaker the JPY gets?

BoJ

Charts: Bloomberg