JGB futures stuck to the upper end of their....>

JGBS: JGB futures stuck to the upper end of their daily range in Thursday's

afternoon session. The pullback from worst levels came despite the Nikkei 225

adding ~3.9%. Yields out to 5-Years finished marginally lower on the day, while

30-Year & 40-Year yields rose by ~1.0bp. 10-Year JGB yields closed at 0.026%

after hitting 0.0% for the first time since Sep 2017 earlier this week.

- The size of the BoJ's Rinban operations covering 5-25+ Year JGBs was left

unchanged in the latest round of operations. The offer to cover ratios for the

operations were as follows. 5-10 Year 1.77x (prev. 2.92x) 10-25 Year 1.95x

(prev. 2.67x) 25+ Year 3.28x (prev. 2.43x).

- The Bank of Japan said Thursday that it will leave the frequency of its

Japanese government bond purchases unchanged in January from the December

levels. The BOJ also left the ranges of the JGB purchases unchanged.

- Labour market data & the summary of opinions from the BoJ's December MonPol

decision are due today, as well as industrial production & Tokyo CPI.