Finance Minister Taro Aso indicated a new openness to introducing 50-year government bonds, days after the country's central bank chief suggested such a move could be helpful. "This is one topic of our considerations," Aso told reporters Friday in Tokyo when asked about the potential ...
Bank of Japan's threat to global bonds fizzles as Japanese insurers stay put
For all the frenzy over the Bank of Japan's first policy tweak in almost two years, little seems to have changed for the nation's insurers. That's because the rise in long-end government bond yields seen after the central bank's July 31 decision has proved to ...
Bank of Japan's bid to taper by stealth made tougher by supercharged yen
The Bank of Japan is finding out just how hard it is to be stealthy — when everyone is looking right at you. The central bank looks set to end this fiscal year well behind on its target for government bond purchases. But having inadvertently ...
With Kuroda staying at the BOJ, Japanese firms rush to issue long debt
Japanese companies are selling superlong bonds amid expectations that Haruhiko Kuroda's reappointment as central bank governor will prolong easy monetary policy, even as increases in overseas yields put pressure on domestic market rates to rise. Less than a week after Prime Minister Shinzo Abe nominated ...
BOJ keeps snapping up debt, but pace of bond purchases slowing
The Bank of Japan continued its spending spree on government debt, although the pace of increase has slowed dramatically since the introduction of yield-curve control in September 2016. The central bank owned 39.5 percent of Japan's bonds and Treasury bills, up from 13.1 percent when ...
BOJ faces call to release handbrake, let longer yields rise
The Bank of Japan is caught in a quandary: to let bond yields rise or not. Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda wants to make longer-maturity debt more attractive by letting yields move higher, yet doing so will put pressure on his efforts to keep 10-year borrowing costs ...
Japan finance institutions face huge losses on government bonds if yields rise
Japanese financial institutions with huge government bond holdings face large appraisal losses if yields rise, a Finance Ministry estimate showed Monday. If yields of outstanding bonds climb 1 percent across the board, the value of outstanding government bonds would drop by an estimated ¥67 trillion, ...
The Bank of Japan shifts the focus of its monetary stimulus to controlling the shape of yields across different maturities.
BOJ is said to mull change or abandonment of JGB maturity range
The Bank of Japan is considering either a tweak to or an abandonment of its guidance on the range of government bonds that it buys, according to people familiar with the discussions. Any shift would reflect a desire by policymakers to give themselves greater flexibility ...
BOJ cornered as Japanese banks seen running out of bonds to sell
The nation's biggest banks are running out of room to sell their government bond holdings, pushing the central bank closer to the limits of its record monetary easing. Japan Post Bank Co. and the nation's three so-called mega-banks have almost halved their sovereign bond holdings ...
BOJ bond valuation losses are said to be ¥874 billion in 2015
The Bank of Japan wrote down the value of its holdings of government debt by ¥874 billion ($8.5 billion) in the last fiscal year, undercutting the income from its still profitable asset-purchase program. With yields below zero, the central bank is buying debt at prices ...
Japan's national debt climbs to a dizzying ¥1,049.37 trillion
Central government debt stood at ¥1,049.37 trillion — or just over 1 quadrillion — at the end of March, up ¥4.78 trillion from three months earlier, the Finance Ministry said Tuesday. The growing debt reflects a lack of financial resources amid ballooning social security costs ...
