In the meantime, the lending attitude of commercial banks has rather tightened reflecting their desire to strengthen profitability. The second yardstick is whether asset prices have changed in the direction assumed by the process of quantitative easing. In actuality, stock prices in Japan have declined compared to the level in March last year.
And, while the yen began to depreciate from last autumn, it has started to appreciate since April this year. This appears to indicate that the yen rate has been dominated by changes in the market perception of business conditions in the US and Japan. The third yardstick is whether prices have stopped declining.