USD/JPY is has risen nearly 40 pips since initial reports on Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund raising its allocation of stock purchases to 25% but it’s basically old news.

Here’s what we wrote on Oct 18:

More from the Nikkei today on Japan’s Government Pension Investment Fund:

  • Currently, investment in Japanese stocks must be in a range of 12%, plus or minus 6 percentage points
  • The weighting as of the end of June stood at 17%, near the upper limit
  • The new standard will likely be about 25%, putting the upper limit at around 30%
  • The change is expected to spur buying of 8 trillion yen in Japanese shares
  • Decisions will be finalised this month

The only thing that’s changed here is that it’s going to be finalized with Health Minister (?) Yasuhisa Shiozaki to make the announcement today, according to Nikkei.

There’s one other difference in that domestic bonds will be lowered to 35% from 60%, rather than the 40% reported mid-month and that could be a driver here (but I doubt it).

In any case, it’s very tough to fight USD/JPY at the moment as it closes in on the October highs.

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