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Master of Surprise Kuroda Does It One More Time
An unexpected policy tweak stunned markets. Expect central banking’s biggest outlier to keep confounding investors.
The last laugh?
Photographer: Yuya Yamamoto/Jiji PressThis article is for subscribers only.
He couldn’t resist one last surprise.
Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda has made his reputation from catching the market off-guard. From his initial “bazookas” of far greater-than-expected monetary easing when he began his term in 2013, to implementing negative rates in 2016 just a week after strenuous denials he was considering anything of the sort, the veteran of central banking knows better than anyone how to pull the rug out from an oblivious market.