Barely weeks after Japanese stocks broke three-decade highs, the country's financial markets are hurtling toward another phenomenon not seen for the best part of a generation: rising interest rates. Bankers are attending remedial classes on what to do when rates move and trading rooms are setting up for moribund derivative markets to spring to life -- as they have begun to do. Their pricing implies a matter of months at the most before the last bastion of a decades-long monetary policy experiment with negative short-term rates falls. An exit by the Bank of Japan is expected by June, with an even chance that rates will rise to zero next week.
Read Full Article »
