Still, the news helped to drive the Nikkei stockmarket index to its highest close since April 2000.Grab your bargainsBritain dipped into deflation in April consumer prices were 0.1% lower than in the same month last year.
He has in effect appointed himself chief executive of Japan, as the Nikkei business newspaper puts it; and this is making the real bosses uneasy.
Japan's Nikkei 225 index fell by 4.9% this week, the Topix fell by 5.6%.Annual inflation in the euro area remained unchanged at 2.5% in June.
Yet between now and close of business on March 31st, the government will be doing its best to rig the country's stockmarket so that the Nikkei index ends the financial year above 18,000.
The Nikkei is up over 2% today (it is up some 40% since the promise of new monetary action was first raised last year).
Yet most of Japan's homeless have never set foot inside an office, let alone read the Nikkei newspaper.
Should a widget maker decide between Polish initial public offerings and the Nikkei?" The complexity of investing may leave many savers prey to quack financial salesmen or, simply, to confusion.Perhaps the biggest worry, however, is a bear market.
For example, fully one-third of the business in Nikkei 225 stock futures is conducted on the Singapore Monetary Exchange (Simex); and 15% of the trading in Japanese shares is booked in London.
And though they were late to the dance, they have brought some nifty moves.Profits at Japan's 559 major listed companies surged by 46% in the most recent quarter, to ¥3.8 trillion $44 billionn), according to Nikkei, a financial-information provider.
Mr Koll calculates that the country's ten city (ie, national commercial) banks on average lose their safety net when the Nikkei hits 15,100.
By October 30th the Nikkei had recovered to just 16,365, doing little to calm bankers' frazzled nerves.Japanese banks once relied on a safety net to cushion any downturn in their business.
