Bank of Japan officials basically nationalized their entire domestic equity market by relentlessly printing unlimited yen to purchase exchange traded funds until the central bank…

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Printing money to buy government bonds is basic macroeconomics, but printing money to buy the entire stock market is next-level audacity. In a desperate bid to fight decades of deflation, the Bank of Japan aggressively expanded its balance sheet by purchasing massive amounts of equity ETFs. This radical policy severely distorted market valuations and corporate governance, as the central bank effectively cornered the market, destroying normal price discovery and absorbing the risk of the entire private sector.