Japan's life insurers shun foreign bonds at record pace

Japan s life insurers are bailing out of foreign bonds at a record pace, despite crippling hedging costs and tempted by higher yields at home.

The Finance Ministry released a net 1.9 trillion $14.1 billion of debt in November, an all-time high, according to preliminary portfolio flow data from the Finance Ministry on Thursday. Japanese investors were net sellers of U.S. French and German debt, according to separate balance-of- payments data for October.

Life insurers probably took advantage of rising bond prices to reduce their holdings, said Tsuyoshi Ueno, senior economist at the NLI Research Institute in Tokyo. I expect the investment environment to be unfavorable for life insurers. This could be due to a conflict with your Adblocking or Security software. There is a list of allowed sites for jp and piano.io. If this does not resolve the issue or you are unable to add the domains to your allowlist, please see this FAQ. We humbly apologize for the inconvenience.