But others may have grown accustomed to continuing asset purchases; the most recent program of quantitative easing, commonly referred to as QE3, had been first announced less than a year before and was proceeding at a steady pace of $ billion per month. The onset of the taper tantrum went well beyond a roiling of U.S. financial markets.
The total book value of the stocks held by the Bank under this program was approximately 1.6 trillion yen as of the end of September 2007, and the Bank has started to dispose of these stocks in the market from October 2007 as scheduled.