Bloomberg: Japan's Central Bank Is 'Quietly' Acquiring 'Huge' Stakes In Japanese Companies And ETFs

According to a report by Bloomberg, Japan's central bank is "quietly" acquiring "huge stakes" in Japanese stocks and electronic traded funds (ETFs). Bloomberg stated that data it compiled suggests that the Bank of Japan is a larger shareholder of Japanese blue-chips and even owns more assets than some of the world's largest money managers, including BlackRock and Vanguard Group. Bloomberg continued that the central bank's buying activity is part of its stimulus plan. Of note, the central bank buys approximately 3 trillion yen ($27.2 billion) of ETF's every year. Even though policy makers and the central bank itself don't disclose how much of a stake it owns in individual companies, Bloomberg's data suggests its ownership stake is "rivaled by few other investors." The Bank of Japan is a top 10 shareholder of more than 200 out of the 225 companies that are included in the Nikkei index. The publication added that if the central bank were to accelerate its ETF purchases to an annual rate of 7 trillion yen, as several analysts are suggesting, the Bank of Japan will become the number one shareholder in approximately 40 companies within the Nikkei index. "For those who want shares to go up at any cost, it's absolutely fantastic that the BOJ is buying so much," Shingo Ide, chief equity strategist at NLI Research Institute in Tokyo was quoted as saying by Bloomberg. "But this is clearly distorting the sanity of the stock market."