Japan Is Fast Approaching the Quantitative Limits of Quantitative Easing

Time for a Plan (Perpetual) B, says Jefferies.

The Bank of Japan is running out of government bonds to buy.

The central bank’s would-be counterparties have become increasingly unwilling to sell the debt that monetary policymakers have pledged to buy, and the most recently issued 30-year Japanese bond didn’t record a single trade during a session last week as existing owners opted to hoard their holdings.

The central bank in the land of the rising prices sun has set a target of 80 trillion yen ($733 billion) in government bond purchases per year in its continued attempts to slay deflation, an amount that’s more than double the pace of new bond issuance planned by the Ministry of Finance and about 16 percent of gross domestic product.

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“There is a growing realization that there are effective limits to how much more Japanese government bonds can be acquired,” he writes. “The BoJ is approaching a shortage of Japanese government bonds for the central bank to buy, as commercial banks, pension and insurance funds have run down their holdings.”

Darby cited a working paper from the International Monetary Fund which concluded the collateral needs of financial institutions were such that the Bank of Japan might be forced to begin tapering its purchases of sovereign debt in 2017 or 2018, to bolster his case.

The thinking here is that as the Bank of Japan reaches the quantitative limits of quantitative easing, the issuance of such a perpetual bond that costs nothing to service would be a way to offer the government a blank cheque to proceed with fiscal stimulus such as boosting spending or cutting taxes.

The strategist believes the Bank of Japan will drop hints about its intention to pursue such a plan at its April meeting.

Full article: Japan Is Fast Approaching the Quantitative Limits of Quantitative Easing (BlombergMarkets)