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The Japanese government bonds suffered Monday, following persistent hypes over the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) monetary policy meeting, where it is expected adopt a policy normalization. Also, the country’s retail sales for the month of June beat market estimates, also rising from that in May, thus pressurizing debt prices.
The yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note, which moves inversely to its price, rose1/2 basis point to 0.10 percent, the yield on the long-term 30-year note surged 2 basis points to 0.82 percent and the yield on short-term 3-year traded nearly 1 basis point higher at -0.11 percent by 05:20GMT.
According to latest media reports, financial market participants are still speculating that the BoJ will adopt a slight tweak in its monetary policy, possibly laying the base for an exit from the quantitative easing porgramme at its 2-fay policy meeting scheduled to be concluded on Tuesday.
BoJ watchers expect this meeting to be 'live', meaning there is a solid possibility that the bank decides to tweak its main monetary policy, mostly because of growing side effects. It is the first 'live' meeting since the central bank adopted its framework called "Quantitative and Qualitative Monetary Easing with Yield Curve Control" in September 2016, Nikkei Asian Review reported.
Lastly, the 1.8 percent annual increase in retail sales in June was more than the median estimate for a 1.6 percent annual gain and follows a 0.6-percent annual increase in May. The results for June showed retail sales have risen for eight consecutive months. On a seasonally-adjusted basis, retail sales also gained 1.5 percent in June versus a 1.7 percent decline in the previous month, data from the Ministry of Trade showed on Monday.
Meanwhile, the Nikkei 225 index traded 0.72 percent lower at 22,549.50 by 05:25GMT, while at 05:00GMT, the FxWirePro's Hourly JPY Strength Index remained neutral at 73.92 (a reading above +75 indicates a bullish trend, while that below -75 a bearish trend). For more details, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex
