Title: T-Bond Jun '21 Futures Contract Specifications - Barchart.com
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T-Bond Jun '21 (ZBM21)
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Content: The Bank of Canada (BOC) during 2019 maintained a neutral monetary policy by leaving its overnight lending rate unchanged all year at 1.75%. By March 2020, however, Canada was engulfed by the coronavirus pandemic like the rest of the world. Canada's economy at the same time also took a hit from the plunge in oil prices caused by the Saudi-Russian price war, which resulted in devastation for Canada's important oil industry. Canadian bond prices rallied sharply on the pandemic as the Canadian economy headed for a deep recession and as the Bank of Canada cut interest rates and launched bond purchases. The Bank of Canada in March 2020 slashed its overnight lending rate by -1.50 percentage points to 0.25%. Japan - The SGX Japan 10-year Japanese government bond (JGB) futures contract (Barchart.com symbol JX) saw some strength during summer 2019 but then fell back and closed the year little changed. The Bank of Japan (BOJ) since September 2016 has pursued a yield-curve control policy where the central bank enforces a steeper yield curve with the 10-year JGB yield near zero, potentially allowing its 80-trillion-yen per year bond-purchase program to fluctuate in size to meet its yield target. The 10-year JGB yield has therefore been trading in a narrow range near zero, within the BOJ's target boundary of +/- 0.20%. Japanese GDP growth took a sharp hit in Q4-2019 after the Japanese government raised the national sales tax to 10% from 8% effective October 1, 2019, in order to help reduce the government's massive national debt. The Japanese economy then took a much sharper hit in early 2020 with the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic.