BOJ owned half of outstanding Japan gov’t bonds for 1st time

The Bank of Japan held more than half of outstanding government bonds for the first time at the end of September, after stepping up purchases to keep bond yields low even as its counterparts began raising interest rates, data showed Monday.

The BOJ owned 536 trillion yen ($4 trillion) worth, or 50.26 percent, of Japanese government bonds, which stood at 1,066 trillion yen. The Japanese central bank has been offering to buy unlimited amounts of 10-year bonds to prevent the benchmark yield from rising above its 0.25 percent cap, as overseas yields continue to rise.

The gobbling up of government ...