Japan’s central bank made unscheduled purchases of government debt on Wednesday as yields on benchmark bonds hit their highest mark in a decade, while a global market sell-off also continued to drive US Treasury yields to 16-year highs.
The Bank of Japan offered to buy ¥675bn worth of Japanese government bonds at maturities between five and 10 years. The BoJ’s offer was part of a total ¥1.9tn ($12.7bn) of JGB purchases across various maturities on Wednesday. The unscheduled part of the offer greatly exceeded market expectations, traders said.
The BoJ is under increasing pressure to maintain its policy of controlling yields on the 10-year JGB while also limiting a slide in the yen, which briefly weakened below ¥150 to the dollar on Tuesday for the first time in almost a year.
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