Saturday, November 14, 2026
The Bank of Japan held its policy rate at 1.25 per cent on Friday 30 October by an 8-1 vote and said underlying inflation is now "generally consistent" with its 2 per cent target, a first since the target was set in 2013. One board member wanted 1.5 per cent. The bank will also sell its ETF holdings more than twice as fast from January.
BlackRock reported on Wednesday 14 October that it ended the third quarter with $15.5 trillion in assets and took in $205 billion of net new money. Revenue rose 19 per cent to $7.75 billion. Diluted earnings were $10.57 a share, or $15.93 as adjusted, and most of the gap is one non-cash charge tied to its own share price.
Corporate bond ETFs now supply much of the liquidity that dealer balance sheets used to. The mechanism works well and has been tested mainly in conditions that were not the hard case.
Fund launches have been outpaced by closures for the first sustained stretch in the product's history. The survivors reveal what the proliferation was actually for.