Honebuto Shock: Japan Courts a Truss-Like Redux

Bill Campbell
Portfolio Manager
Global Sovereign Debt

Sell-offs in Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs) and the yen have put Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi on notice, a DoubleLine paper argues, that Japan’s creditors have little tolerance for her government’s unorthodox proposal for a mixture of unfunded fiscal expansion with docile central-banking. Surveying the “Honebuto shock,” so-named after debt-and-yen sell-off following Tokyo’s annual fiscal policy statement, Bill Campbell, head of the DoubleLine’s Global Sovereign & Emerging Markets team, sees parallels to the gilts and British pound revolt over a 2022 proposal for unfunded fiscal expansion by U.K. Prime Minister Liz Truss that swiftly brought down her government. Having committed to more than 370 trillion yen of public-private investment through fiscal 2040, the government is calling for monetary policy “in coordination with” that growth agenda,” Mr. Campbell writes. “In the eyes of the financial markets, this demand for the subordination of monetary policy to a political platform only adds fuel to the fire beneath a central bank already under criticism for what critics deem an overly cautious rate-hiking path.” Mr. Cambell warns, “The Takaichi government should not assume the JGB market, having found its voice, will prove more patient than the gilts market that laid low the Truss government in 2022. In today’s inflationary climate, fiscal credibility is earned, not presumed – even in the G-7 countries. And a G-7 sovereign who embarks on unfunded fiscal expansion risks courting a buyers’ strike.”

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