MNI POLICY: BOJ Cuts Frequency Of Nov Short-, Mid- JGB Buys

The Bank of Japan said Friday it would reduce the frequency of government bond buying operations with a remaining life of 1 to 3 years and 3 to 5 years to five in November from six operations in October.

The decision is based on the improvement of liquidity of those bonds and of functioning after the BOJ has increased the operation frequency in April to help stabilize bond markets.

Reflecting the reduction in operations, the BOJ increased the scale to a range of JPY350 billion to JPY650 billion and a range of JPY250 billion to JPY600 billion from a range of JPY250 billion to JPY600 billion and a range of JPY200 billion to JPY500 billion, respectively.

The BOJ has said that the bank would conduct purchases in a flexible manner, taking account of market conditions, aiming to achieve the target level of a long-term interest rate specified by the guideline for market operations. Depending on conditions, purchase size per auction could be set at a fixed amount or to an unlimited amount, the BOJ added.

The BOJ's schedule sees it refrain from conducting JGB buying operations on days when the Ministry of Finance holds auctions for JGBs or the BOJ board holds policy meetings.