Japan’s MOF data: Japanese investors buying in US bonds hits 2-year high in September

The latest data from the Japanese Ministry of Finance  (MOF) showed on Thursday, the Japanese investors buying of the US Treasuries rose to the highest levels in more than two years in the month of September.

Key Details (via Reuters):

Japanese investors bought a net 2.5367 trillion yen ($22.34 billion) of the US bonds in September.

Japanese investors bought 2.2759 trillion yen ($20.03 billion) of Treasuries in that month, also the biggest amount since July 2016, enticed by rise in their yields to near seven-year highs.

During the twelve months to August, they were net sellers on nine of those months, offloading a total of 10.3 trillion yen, largely because the cost of currency hedging on the dollar has risen.

Japanese investors also continued to pour a large amount of money in European bonds.

They bought 678.9 billion yen of French bonds, bringing their total buying so far this year to almost 4 trillion yen, and snatched 896.3 billion yen of German bonds, their first net buying in six months.

Their foray into UK bonds continued into the seventh straight month, with buying of 332.4 billion yen in September, and they purchased 183.1 billion yen of Irish bonds – the largest in eight years.