Tag Archives: Bank of Japan

JGBs Slide, Yen Spikes As Parazlyed BOJ Fails To Intervene With Yields Hitting 6 Year High, by Tyler Durden

Posted on March 25, 2022 | Leave a comment

The Bank of Japan faces an especially acute version of a dilemma that confronts many central banks: keep interest rates low and watch the currency crash, or raise them and watch the economy crash. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

After sliding relentlessly for much of the past month on expectations that the BOJ will be the “odd” central bank out, refusing to join its developed peers in tightening financial conditions, and the USDJPY rising as high as 122.44 earlier (from 115 three weeks ago), the yen jumped on Friday morning in Japan, after the 10Y JGB crossed a critical resistance level without intervention from Kuroda.

Entering the final trading day of the week, with 10Y JGB yields on the verge of rising above 0.23%, traders were bracing for another massive bond market intervention by the BOJ. As Bloomberg’s Wes Goodman put it, “there’s a good chance the Bank of Japan will buy bonds as soon as Friday to curb the advance in yields. JGB ten-year rates are climbing in tandem with yields globally, rising to 0.23%.”

As shown in the chart below, when JGBs hit that level last month, the central bank responded with one of its an unlimited fixed-rate purchases, in effect putting a hard stop to further declines in JGBs.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Government

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#MacroView: 5-Reasons The Fed’s New Policy Won’t Get Inflation, by Lance Roberts

Posted on September 6, 2020 | Leave a comment

Why unlimited fiat debt doesn’t create unlimited price inflation. From Lance Roberts at realinvestmentadvice.com:

At the recent Jackson Hole Economic Summit, Jerome Powell unveiled the Fed’s new monetary policy designed to create inflation. In today’s #Macroview, we will discuss the 5-reasons why the Fed will not get inflation, and why deflation is the bigger risk.

The current assumption is that the Fed’s new policy will lead to higher inflation.

“The new policy regime is an important evolution in our thinking about how to achieve our goals and another step toward greater transparency, The policy change positions us for success in achieving our maximum employment and price stability goals in the future.” – Fed Reserve Bank of NY, John Williams, via WSJ 

What exactly is this new policy? Well, that’s the interesting part, no one actually knows. However, as noted by the WSJ:

“The Fed said it would now seek to hit its 2% inflation target on average, and that it wouldn’t raise rates just to ward off the theoretical threat of inflation posed by a strong job market. The Fed, however, didn’t say how it would determine the average, and several regional Fed officials suggested that a 2.5% jobless rate was as much as they would tolerate. At the same time, with the economy in deep trouble, there is little expectation inflation will test the Fed’s target for years.”

So, to be clear, the Fed’s new policy is simply to “average the inflation rate” over a period of time and let the unemployment rate fall to as low as 2.5%. The last time the unemployment rate was at 2.5% was for one quarter in 1953 just before the 1954 recession set in.

Fed's New Policy Inflation, #MacroView: 5-Reasons The Fed’s New Policy Won’t Get Inflation

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Posted in Banking, Business, Debt, Economy, Government

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Why Japan may spark the next crisis, by Simon Black

Posted on August 2, 2018 | Leave a comment

Japan has the worst debt problem among developing nations…by far. From Simon Black at sovereignman.com:

In a world full of reckless and extreme monetary policy, Japan no doubt takes the cake.

The country has total debt of more than ONE QUADRILLION YEN (around $10 trillion) pushing its debt-to-GDP ratio to a whopping 224% – that puts it ahead of financial basket case Greece, whose debt-to-GDP is around 180%.

Japan spent 24.1% of its total revenue (appx. 23.5 trillion yen) last year servicing its debt – both paying down principal and interest. And that percentage has no doubt moved even higher this year.

And, keep in mind, this isn’t some banana republic. It’s the world’s third-largest economy.

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The country’s economy is so screwed up that the Bank of Japan (BOJ), the central bank, has been conjuring trillions of yen out of thin air to buy government debt.

The BOJ printed yen to buy basically all of the $9.5 trillion of government debt outstanding. When it ran out of bonds to buy, BOJ started buying stocks. Now it’s a top 10 shareholder in 40% of Japanese listed companies.

Most recently, the central bank has started “yield-curve control,” which basically means they’ll do whatever it takes to make sure the government doesn’t have to pay more than 0.1% interest.

But something interesting has happened over the past few weeks…

Despite the BOJ’s promise to hold rates and bond yields down, the other owners of Japanese government bonds (JGBs) have been getting nervous. And they’ve been selling.

The selling pressure pushed bond prices down (and, inversely, yields and rates up)… In just under two weeks, yields on 10-year JGBs soared from 0.03% to 0.11% – an 18-month high.

If you own an asset and you don’t think it will perform well, you sell it. And clearly that’s how people feel about Japanese debt. The bonds pay close to zero, after all.

Japan has been fighting deflation for a long time. And with deflation, when the purchasing power of your money increases every year, you may consider holding a bond that pays close to zero… because you’re still maintaining your purchasing power.

To continue reading: Why Japan may spark the next crisis

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Posted in Currencies, Debt, Financial markets

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