TOKYO, March 28 (Reuters) - Japanese government bond
yields sank on Thursday, tracking an overnight decline for U.S.
peers, while traders also tried to determine how soon the Bank
of Japan could raise interest rates again.
The 10-year JGB yield fell 1.5 basis points
(bps) to 0.700% as of 0500 GMT, the lowest level since March 6.
Five-year yields also declined by the same
amount to 0.345%, a level not seen since Feb. 29.
U.S. 10-year Treasury yields stood at about 4.2%
on Thursday after sinking as low as 4.182% overnight for the
first time since March 13.
From next week though, Japanese yields are likely to head
higher as Japan begins a new fiscal year, said Naomi Muguruma,
senior market economist at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley
Securities.
"There will be fresh issuance of JGBs and probably corporate
bond issuance will pick up, so there will be some supply
pressure that will push up JGB yields," she said.
Taken together with speculation in the market that the BOJ
might move faster with additional rate hikes than initially
estimated, the 10-year yield could reach 0.9% next quarter,
Muguruma added.
Minutes from the BOJ's meeting last week - when the central
bank exited negative interest rate policy with its first hike
since 2007 - showed some board members saw the need to go slow
with a normalisation of policy.
The two-year JGB yield, which is more
sensitive to monetary policy expectations, was flat at 0.19%,
staying close to the nearly 13-year high of 0.205% from Friday.
However, super long JGB yields slid, with the 20-year yield
sliding 3 bps to 1.450% and 30-year yields
dropping 2.5 bps to 1.755%, both the lowest since
March 6.
Benchmark 10-year JGB futures rose 0.14 yen to
145.88. Bond yields fall when prices rise.