When Hiroyuki Kubota’s boat party for Japanese government bond traders and strategists restarted last autumn, after a pause of several years, there was reason to celebrate.
The veteran group was suddenly back in vogue. The world’s top hedge funds had begun to focus on the Bank of Japan’s reversal of its ultra-loose monetary policy, shaking up the once sleepy backwater of global finance by hiring a steady flow of traders with knowledge of Japan’s sovereign debt. Volatility in Japan’s $7.1 trillion government bond market was surging to levels not seen since the 2008 financial crisis.