The FTSE 100 opened at 6102 and quickly dropped below 6060 where it remained volatile through the day before closing down at 6052 (-0.82%).

Japan saw the Nikkei index slide today after the BoJ announced to the market that they will not be putting additional stimulus measures in place for the time being. The market has become wearier of the economy’s health as it continues to deliver a slow rate of growth. The Bank has announced that they will continue to fuel inflation by supporting their quantitative easing programme which has been running now for almost three years. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) announced they will stick to its target of purchasing ¥80trillion ($650billion). The large asset purchases are designed to help against Japan’s long battle with deflation as the hope is to increase the rate of growth the economy is currently expanding at and in turn see inflation.

The BoJ also extended their average maturity for their Japanese Government Bonds (JGB) from 7 to ten years to 7 to twelve years. However, the BoJ said it would continue printing money and although the market did react positively to the news regarding the expansion of the maturity of their JGB purchases, it was announcement that there would be no further easing for the moment which soon turned the market into negative territory.

At the close, European indices were down with the FTSE 100 -0.82%, the CAC 40 -1.12%, and the DAX -1.21%. Asian indices were also down for the day with the Hang Seng -0.53% and the Nikkei 225 -1.89%. At the time of writing this, US indices were down with the NASDAQ -0.60%, the S&P 500 -1.02% and the Dow Jones -1.29%.