BoJ Propping Up Japan ETFs?

On Wednesday, we noted a report from TrimTabs Investment Research that showed the iShares MSCI Japan Index Fund EWJ was home to $692 million in inflows on Tuesday. There might be an answer as to who was doing some of that buying.

Citing a Citigroup report, Barron's reported earlier this afternoon that the Bank of Japan, the country's central bank, made an estimated $370 million in ETF purchases this week.

Research firm Lipper lists the total net inflow for all eight ETFs focused on Japan at $936.8 million in the week-ended Wednesday, according to Barron's. That figure includes both long and inverse ETFs.

On Wednesday, Benzinga, citing data from the iShares Web site, reported that EWJ had $5.2 billion in assets under management and 555.6 million shares outstanding. iShares data as of Thursday puts those figures at $6.52 billion AUM and 639.6 million shares outstanding.

EWJ tracks 324 stocks with an expense ratio of 0.54%.