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Comment by inigyou

9 hours ago

Japan has to sell off its bonds to get dollars to buy oil with since oil is so expensive. I wonder why that happened.

21 comments

inigyou

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timr  8 hours ago

No. That has nothing to do with this.

Setting aside the obvious fact that the BOJ does not buy oil, they’ve been engaged in a (futile) currency defense scheme since long before the Iran conflict. This is purely about the interest rate spread.

  • xbmcuser  8 hours ago

    It is not completely but part of the reason Japan wants to defend it's currency is inflation because of increase in energy prices.

    • timr  8 hours ago

      In the sense that weak currency makes everything you buy from foreign partners more expensive, sure.

      The place where you go wrong is drawing a straight line to the US actions in Iran. They’re not directly connected.

      1 reply →

    • rayiner  7 hours ago

      The devaluation of the Yen against the dollar (from the typical 110:1 to these days 150:1) started around 2021 and has been a source of angst in Japan for quite some time. People were complaining about it constantly when I was last in Tokyo in December 2025, when oil was at $70/barrel.

      9 replies →

  • dredmorbius  8 hours ago

    Investor fears about rising oil prices and how Japan’s Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi can afford her fiscal stimulus plans recently pushed the yen towards 40-year lows

    From TFA.

    • timr  8 hours ago

      That line is worth exactly as much as the daily financial news quote “explaining” why the stock market wiggled in a particular direction yesterday.

      All of those things have some impact on “investors” thinking at all times. They do not uniquely explain the current events. Japan has been defending the yen like this since at least 2022.

  • dosisking  7 hours ago

    > Setting aside the obvious fact that the BOJ does not buy oil

    I guess you are not aware that it is the Japanese corporations and not the BOJ that hold the US bonds