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TOKYO — Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said Thursday his aggressive easing policy has no “quantitative limit,” rejecting views that the central bank will run out of ammunition.
“There aren’t any such things as a quantitative limit or anything, any numbers we can’t overcome,” Kuroda said during a parliamentary session in reference to his policy stance and the BOJ’s present easing measures.
The BOJ’s policy is currently made up of a minus 0.1% deposit rate and a quantitative easing program that buys assets from the markets at an annual pace of 80 trillion yen.
The offshore yuan headed for the strongest quarterly performance in more than four years as Chinese policy makers talked up the currency, intervened in the market and choked the supply of cash to burn speculators.
A Bloomberg replica of the CFETS RMB Index, which was unveiled in December and tracks the yuan against 13 exchange rates, fell 2.8 percent in the first quarter, suggesting the Chinese currency depreciated on a trade-weighted basis. The gauge dropped below 98 for the first time since November2014 on Wednesday before returning above that mark on Thursday.
Oil prices dip as US crude stocks hit record for 7th successive week
Oil futures fell in Asian trade on Thursday amid renewed worries of global oversupply after official data showed U.S. crude inventories rose last week to a record for the seventh time in a row.
That increase came despite seasonal refinery utilisation hitting an 11-year high, while a rise in the dollar index put further pressure on oil prices.
Brent crude futures fell 22 cents to $39.04 a barrel as of 0136 GMT. It ended up 12 cents in the previous session, after touching a session peak of $40.61.
U.S. crude stocks rose by 2.3 million barrels to 534.8 million barrels in the week to March 25, data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows.
Imports by Iran's top four buyers - China, India, Japan and South Korea - came to 1.28 million bpd in February, up 24.6 percent from a year ago, government and tanker-tracking data shows. That was the highest volume taken by Tehran's four biggest oil clients since they bought 1.37 million bpd in February2014.
Reference: MarketWatch, Reuters, The Financial Express, Bloomberg
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