News · Policy · Japan · 2 Oct 2026
Sanae Takaichi's long post on X lists falling visa approvals and a higher bar for permanent residency. It does not say how many of the rejected applicants were breaking the rules.
News · Policy · Japan, China, India · 23 Sept 2026
China doesn't just mine rare earths. It makes nearly all the world's rare-earth magnets, and in 2025 it used that chokehold to force its way into trade talks with Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump can't afford to ignore the leverage days weeks away from the end of the one-year deal.
Deep Dive · Rates & FX · Japan · 21 Sept 2026
The Bank of Japan's September hike was priced, and markets read it as dovish. The effects on global yields, yen carry and risk assets run through slower channels.
News · Macro · Japan · 20 Sept 2026
Higher Japanese bond yields let the country's pension funds and insurers earn what they need with less overseas duration. This comes as Japan's Treasury holdings fall every month since April.
News · Rates & FX · Japan, US · 21 Aug 2026
Sometime this month, the United States Treasury reached into its own history and bought back a bond that almost everyone had forgotten.
Deep Dive · Rates & FX · Japan, US · 4 Aug 2026
The joint intervention pulled USD/JPY back from a 40-year low in four trading days. It left Japan's fiscal overhang, its energy-driven trade deficit and its rate gap with Washington exactly where they were.
News · Rates & FX · Japan, US · 4 Aug 2026
The instructions were four words, scrawled by hand: "To Do: Buy Japanese Yen $5-10 bil."
Deep Dive · Macro · China, Japan · 27 Jul 2026
A structural shift in the geography of low-cost financing is underway across trade finance, bond markets and official liquidity channels, though not yet in headline policy rates.
News · Macro · Japan, China · 27 Jul 2026
Japan's path to normalization has given way to a new source of cheap funding to not just the region, but to the wider world as China's two-pronged strategy to stoke its economy and negate the effects of U.S. tariffs keeps rates low.
Deep Dive · Macro · Japan · 6 Jul 2026
USD/JPY is trading near four-decade lows even after the Bank of Japan ended yield curve control and raised rates three times. A comprehensive look at forty years of yen intervention, what the tool can and cannot do from here, and the policy mix that gives Tokyo the best odds.
News · Rates & FX · Japan · 6 Jul 2026
The dollar bought 162.5 yen in early July, within a fraction of a four-decade high hit on July 1. That the yen is this weak is not, by itself, surprising after three years of a strong dollar. What is surprising is that…
Deep Dive · Rates & FX · Japan · 30 Jun 2026
The yen carry trade has rebuilt to a nine-year speculative short. Japan spent $74 billion between April and May trying to stop it. The yen is still at 161.
News · Rates & FX · Japan · 30 Jun 2026
With speculative shorts at a nine-year extreme and the currency at its weakest since 1986, Tokyo's reserves are depleting faster than the carry trade is breaking.
Deep Dive · Rates & FX · Japan · 11 Jun 2026
The Ministry of Finance spent a record ¥11.7 trillion buying yen in April and May. The Bank of Japan couldn't raise rates fast enough to matter. So the MoF bought time.
News · Rates & FX · Japan · 11 Jun 2026
The 2026 record-breaking intervention has laid bare the limits of Japan’s defensive economic strategy. Caught between a weak yen that fuels inflation and a precarious debt load that prevents aggressive rate hikes, Tokyo is increasingly relying on a series of tactical strikes--and an ever-growing list of non-rate tools--to maintain a fragile, managed equilibrium.
