BoJ keeps its bond-buying plan for August unchanged from July, as expected

The BoJ publishes its monthly JGB purchase schedule in advance, broken down by maturity bucket, and an unchanged plan is the baseline outcome that has historically produced little reaction of its own; the informational content lies in the deviations. In the bank's prior normalisation phases, reductions in scheduled buying across buckets have been the tell for tapering intent, while surprises have tended to run through the super-long sector first, where BoJ ownership is heaviest and the curve is most sensitive to marginal official demand. The distinction worth drawing is between the schedule as an operations calendar and as a policy signal: holding the plan steady while the policy rate debate proceeds leaves the yield side of the framework as the quiet leg, consistent with the bank's established preference for telegraphing shifts well ahead of implementation. What has mattered in comparable episodes is the follow-on sequence: any adjustment to purchase amounts or frequency in subsequent schedules, unscheduled buying operations in response to disorderly moves, and how the plan interacts with redemption flows and fiscal supply. With the plan as expected, attention reverts to the next policy meeting communications and to whether officials link the bond-buying path to the rate path or continue treating them as separable.