Japan – Decline & Fall Of The Biggest Bond Market In The World

Bank of Japan has reached the practical limit of its government buying programme in terms of its current purchase programme of ¥80tn relative to estimated annual JGB net new issuance of ¥34tn.

In this respect, the Japanese central bank has from a potentially monetisation standpoint always defended the integrity of its JGB purchase programme by stressing that it only buys JGBs in the secondary market, which means that the seller of the JGB to the BoJ forfeits a claim to that asset. This is contrasted to what would happen if the BoJ bought JGBs in the primary market on an open-ended basis.

This is why Japan, as well as America, is also a candidate for monetisation of infrastructure stimulus or for what Bernanke has called a “money-financed fiscal programme”, or what has been called in other quarters “overt monetary financing”. This is because Bank of Japan governor Haruhiko Kuroda is now looking for a new alternative form of monetary easing, given he has probably reached the practical limits of responsible JGB buying, as already discussed, while his initial move to impose negative rates in January led to the opposite market reaction than expected (ie, a stronger yen and a weaker stock market, see Figure 8) while also proving politically very unpopular. This probably explains why Kamikaze Kuroda has not expanded the negative rate policy further since January even though inflation and inflation expectations have moved in the opposite direction of what he has been targeting.

The latest data will make it harder for Kuroda to do nothing at the next BoJ policy meeting due to be held on 28-29 July given the stress he has put on monitoring inflation expectations. That is unless he just admits he has failed!

with unconventional policy could impact markets is far from theoretical since all the evidence is that central bankers are not prepared to acknowledge the overwhelming empirical evidence that their policies are not working and, indeed, are having the opposite effect of what is intended. Instead they remain obsessed with policy frameworks influenced by inflation targeting and monitoring inflation expectations. It is, therefore, critical for investors to focus on what could be the next version of the monetary laboratory experiment with the obvious catalyst for that turning point market realisation that the Federal Reserve is not going to be able to normalise monetary policy.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-08/decline-fall-biggest-bond-market-world-has-only-one-inevitable-ending