JGB's head into the close slightly......>

JGB SUMMARY: JGB's head into the close slightly higher, JGB futures up 1 tick at

150.38 recovering from lows in the afternoon session. JGB's were sold in the

morning session as the afternoon weakness in UST's spilled over to Asia. The

sell off saw US 10-Year yields breach the March 2017 highs, which sparked

further selling and pushed US yields to the highest since December 2016. JGB's

followed suit, futures touching lows of 150.28, selling was mostly contained in

futures though with limited follow through to cash - 10-Year JGB yield never

more than 0.3bp higher and has dropped to close at session lows of 0.073%, down

0.5bp on the session.

- JGB's gained after the BoJ buying operations in the 5+ Year zones, there was

some worry that the Bank could cut purchases again but a relief rally followed

the unchanged announcement. The results were strong, particularly in the long

end where cover dropped to the lowest since the end of November, which saw an

extra wave of buying after the results were released.

- Market looking ahead to next weeks busy data docket; Trade Balance (Weds), the

BoJ rate announcement (Weds) and CPI (Thurs) all on the calendar.