While it most likely is just the usual Friday (past) midnight trial balloon by the Nikkei, a media outlet that has promptly become the BOJ’s mouthpiece (recall a week ago the new owner of the FT reported that Abe would delay his 2017 sales tax increase, only to see the premier backpedal when the reaction in the USDJPY was not quite as desired), moments ago the Japanese publication reported that the Bank of Japan will “likely set aside funds for the first time to prepare for losses on its huge holdings of Japanese government bonds should the central bank end its monetary easing policy in the future.”
Nikkei reports that the BOJ has reserved 450 billion yen ($4.07 billion) for the year ended in March. The amount will become known when the BOJ releases financial statements as early as next week. The way the BOJ is preparing for losses is amusing: it is accruing the interest income from the bonds it owns so it can reserve for capital losses on those same bonds once rates spike, to wit:
The BOJ created a framework last fiscal year that permits it to set aside part of the interest income from its JGB holdings, which have ballooned through the bank’s massive monetary easing program. Interest income likely grew about 30% from the prior year to around 1.3 trillion yen in fiscal 2015.
Though BOJ Gov. Haruhiko Kuroda has indicated that the bank could expand easing if it faces difficulty achieving its inflation target, the creation of the reserves is a move to prepare for an exit from monetary easing.
The central bank’s JGB holdings totaled 349 trillion yen as of March 31, up about 180% in three years. Long-term interest rates, currently in negative territory, will rise and bond prices will fall should the BOJ end its monetary easing once it is sure that Japan is finally breaking free of deflation.
According to Nikkei, the bank estimates that a 1 percentage-point rise in long-term rates lowers the value of its JGB holdings by 21 trillion yen, or about $200 billion, which incidentally is about 50x more than the BOJ is said to be reserving, which implies that the BOJ is expect only a tiny increase in rates.
There will be a problem however if interest rates spike far more than just 1%.. or even 10%. After all, with the BOJ out of the picture, there will be no backstopped buyer of marginal issuance (and deficit funding), which means that the BOJ will almost certainly never be able to get out of the market at all.
Which however explains the trial balloon: the BOJ is merely curious to see how the market will react to the hint that BOJ buying may eventually end (even if it never will).
Meanwhile, just like in the case of the US, the BOJ pays most of its net income to the government, and this payment will decline if the bank sets aside reserves. Furthermore, the central bank’s profits have suffered from the lower value of foreign-currency assets due to a stronger yen. As a result, payments to the government are estimated at 400 billion yen for fiscal 2015, down sharply from 756.7 billion yen in the prior year.
Fiscal 2010 was the last time the BOJ paid less than 500 billion yen to the government. “The reserves are meant to even out swings in profit so payments to the government will not change over the long term,” a BOJ official said.
But from a short-term perspective, the lower payment to the government means that taxpayers will shoulder a heavier burden. So while the BOJ’s monetary easing may be propping up the economy and consumer prices, taxpayers essentially are picking up the tab.
If and when the BOJ does withdraw from the market, it will therefore face a double whammy of risks: the threat of soaring bond yields and a just as soaring Yen, in a global risk off move. At least initially: once the BOJ loses all credibility, the Yen will disintegrate as has been the long-running thesis of Kyle Bass and Dylan Grice, as Japan finally unleashes hyperinflation to deal with its massive debt overhang.
It’s a different matter entirely if the BOJ will ever actually follow up with “ending monetary easing policy.” If the past 8 years have demonstrated something very vividly, it is that central banks simply can not escape the vortex of QE, ZIRP and now NIRP. If anything, more easing will have to be added in the coming years as global rates turn ever more negative.
In fact, according to many observers, far from reducing QE, Japan’s next move will be one of terminal easing in the form of helicopter money.
For now, however, let the latest Nikkei trial balloon play out.
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