Breaking News: Bank of Japan Embraces Negative Interest Rates!

What the casino stock markets have been drooling for has finally arrived. 

Since stock markets are not allowed to sink, so desperate times calls for desperate measures. The global war on interest rates has only deepened

From the Financial Times:

The Bank of Japan has adopted negative interest rates in their first benchmark rate move in five years, but has also chosen not to expand its quantitative and qualitative easing programme beyond its current level of buying Y80tn assets a year.

The BoJ has adopted a benchmark rate of -0.1 per cent, from a previous level of 0.1 per cent. It is the first time they have moved interest rates since October 2010.

Most economists had expected the BoJ to stay on the same course, although investors are looking to central banks for additional support given falling stock prices. Deflationary pressures – largely energy-related, as oil prices remain low – and the risks they pose to the BoJ’s inflation expectations are consistently cited as a likely motive for further easing.