SVB Bust Won't Go Big in Japan---Probably

Japan is a big owner of foreign government bonds. The Silicon Valley Bank debacle has highlighted the risks posed by rising interest rates—but the country’s financial institutions will likely avoid similar fallout despite mountainous Treasury holdings.

Japanese banks and insurers have long been key buyers of foreign bonds, looking abroad to juice returns since interest rates at home have been close to zero for so long. Japan is the top foreign owner of the U.S. Treasury bonds—outweighing even China—with total holdings of nearly $1.1 trillion. As of the end of 2022, Japan owned around 281 trillion yen, the equivalent of $2.1 trillion, of foreign debt securities, according to preliminary estimates by the government. Japan’s foreign currency reserves account for much of it—it has nearly $1 trillion in foreign securities—but financial institutions make up much of the rest