Japan is the only game in town right now and for good reason. First, it was the yen's +20% move in less than six months and now there's the extraordinary volatility in Japanese stock and bond markets. What's behind the recent action? Nobel laureate Paul Krugman points to false alarm over rising bond yields which is actually reflective of increased optimism in a Japanese economic recovery. One can only assume Krugman wrote this with a straight face, all the while ignoring the real reasons for Japan's dysfunctional bond market: 1) investors bailing due to 10-year government bonds yielding just 0.85% when the central bank is targeting 2% inflation 2) And that snowballing into liquidity concerns as the central bank increasingly crowds out other players in the bond market, leading to increased yield volatility.
|