The Japanese yen went through the roof
The currency is up by 1.9% at 103.31 per dollar as of 7:26 a.m. ET.
After all the speculation and hype, the BOJ only ended up announcing a small tweak to policy earlier on Friday.
The bank said it would increase the amount of exchange-traded funds it buys to an annual pace 6 trillion yen, up from its previous pace of 3.3 trillion yen. It left its Japanese government bond purchases static at an annual rate of 80 trillion yen and held its key interest rate unchanged at -0.1%.
"There's always tomorrow. The BOJ today offered markets a little appetizer, but the full menu of easing has been kept in the oven for another day," wrote an HSBC team led by Frederic Neumann in a note.
"Importantly, the BOJ said it will review the effectiveness of its policies at its upcoming meeting on 21 September. This may raise hopes for something punchier. But we counsel caution: to us, today's decision suggests that the BOJ has reached the limits of its current policy framework," they added.
As for the rest of the world, here's the scoreboard as of 7:37 a.m. ET:
- The US dollar index is weaker by 0.5% at 96.22 ahead of a saturated data day. GDP will be released at 8:30 a.m. ET before Chicago PMI and University of Michigan consumer confidence cross the wires at 9:45 a.m. ET and 10 a.m. ET, respectively. The Baker Hughes oil-rig count is due out at 1 p.m. ET.
- The euro is up by 0.3% at 1.1110 against the dollar even though the preliminary flash estimate showed that euro area gross domestic product growth slowed to 0.3% in the second quarter, down from the first quarter's 0.6%. Year-over-year, growth was up 1.6%.
- The Russian ruble is down by 0.6% at 67.0442 after the Central Bank of Russia held rates unchanged at 10.50%, as most were expecting.
- The British pound is little changed at 1.3179 against the dollar.
- The Swiss franc is stronger by 0.6% at .9749 per dollar.