BoJ holds at 1.25% on an 8-1 vote, more than doubles its ETF sales pace
Serguey Asael Shinder2 min readThe Bank of Japan kept its policy rate unchanged at the end of a two-day meeting on 30 October, but the decision was not unanimous and the bank sped up the unwinding of its stock holdings.
By an 8-1 vote, the Policy Board will continue to encourage the uncollateralised overnight call rate to remain at around 1.25%. Hajime Takata voted against and proposed 1.5%. According to the statement, he argued that with underlying CPI inflation having reached the price stability target, the situation has moved to a new phase in which the bank needs to step up the pace of bringing the policy rate closer to the neutral rate so that it can respond nimbly.
By a unanimous vote, the board changed the pace of sales of exchange-traded funds. In September 2025 it had decided to sell ETFs at a scale similar to its earlier sales of shares bought from financial institutions, about 0.05% of market trading value, and set the pace at about ¥330 billion a year at book value. Sales began in January 2026 and, the bank says, have gone smoothly without a major market impact, while trading value in the stock market has grown. It will now sell at about 0.1% of trading value, about ¥860 billion a year at book value, or about ¥2,460 billion at market value using the ratio of the past nine months. The change takes effect in January 2027. Sales may still be adjusted or suspended within the annual pace if markets require, and the pace for J-REITs stays at about ¥5 billion a year.
The bank also published the Bank's View section of its quarterly Outlook Report; the full text follows on 2 November and the summary of opinions on 10 November.
What it means
Takata's dissent says in public that at least one board member thinks the target has been reached in the bank's preferred measure, which keeps a December or January move on the table. The ETF decision is the larger structural step: at the new pace, a portfolio built over a decade starts shrinking measurably, though at book value it will still take many decades to clear.