So this is how an era of extraordinarily loose monetary policy ends. Not with a bang but a pledge to ?encourage the overnight call rate to stay effectively at zero?.

After five years of gritting its teeth, the Bank of Japan finally returned on Thursday to the orthodoxy of targeting interest rates. Yet, acutely aware of the forthcoming dangers to the global and Japanese financial markets ? not to mention its own reputation ? the bank was at pains to play down the event.