Japanese investors bought a record amount of foreign bonds in July, purchasing over $49 billion, data released on Monday showed, as Japan's negative interest rates prompted them to look abroad for returns. Last month, Japanese investors bought a net 5.45 trillion yen ($53.41 billion) of medium- and long-term foreign bonds, eclipsing March's record of 5.20 trillion yen.
Japanese life insurers posted record net purchases of about 2 trillion yen in July, surpassing a previous record of 1.4 trillion yen set in March. Yields on Japanese government bonds have trended upward this month after the Bank of Japan did not include any additional JGB purchases in easing steps it announced on July 29, raising speculation that the central bank had reached the limits of its JGB buying. But in July, JGB yields slumped to record lows, with the yield on the 20-year JGB briefly turning negative. It has since risen to 0.320 percent on Monday.