As market participants were just getting their sea legs back after the start of the year, it was hit by a one-two punch of ideas that BOJ policy was turning less accommodative and that Chinese officials were wary of adding to their Treasury holdings. Then late yesterday, a news wire reported that Canada suspected the US was going to withdraw from NAFTA. Today, however, the markets have stabilized. First, in today's operations, the BOJ maintained its purchases of short- and medium-term bonds today. This helped ease some fears and the 10-year benchmark yield slipped back. In our view, the purchases of fewer bonds by ... (full story)