Japanese banks borrow at near zero rates locally, and buy up Brazilian bonds internationally.
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Japanese interest rates are already at zero, so loosening monetary policy is the sole measure at the Bank of Japan's disposal.
The Bank of Japan relies on the asset buying program as its main economic policy tool because Japanese interest rates are already near zero percent.
After the failure of a German bund auction, interest rates began to climb in Germany, and so did Japanese rates that have been near zero for almost a decade!
But since the crisis, other countries - the US, the eurozone and the UK - also have near-zero interest rates, meaning that in comparison Japanese rates are not so exceptionally attractive any more.
Interest rates of 11.75% in Brazil make for an attractive carry-trade for Japanese banks, who can borrow money at near-zero interest rates and invest in Brazilian government bonds or bank deposits paying double digit yields.
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The Japanese bank has supposedly had, until very recently, a zero interest rate policy.
Japanese bonds, the second largest bond market, has near zero yield.
The remaining yield on longer-term bonds is a risk premium that is commensurate with U.S. interest-rate volatility (Japanese risk premiums are lower, but they also have nearly zero interest-rate variability).
"The advantage is that practically everybody is starting from zero, " said Alonso, who won the Singapore and Japanese Grands Prix last season.
When we blew into the device, our hunger level came back at zero percent, which seemed accurate after completing a rather hearty Japanese breakfast.
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More remarkable than the amount of Japanese household financial assets is their structure: 60 percent are in essentially zero-yield bank deposits.
Of course, in a zero interest rate world where interest returns have dropped close to traditionally low Japanese levels in the U.S. and elsewhere, Japan at present does not have much of a competitive disadvantage.
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Earlier Tuesday, the Bank of Japan cut its benchmark interest rate to nearly zero and said it would buy government bonds in a bid to weaken the yen and boost the Japanese economy.
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