Decades in, Japan’s experiment with structural monetary easing has been thrown into reverse in recent months, triggering contagion from the Asian economy to the European and US bond markets. With this, the unwinding of the second largest bond market in the world is now fully underway, and the spectre of a major worldwide economic crisis is no longer theoretical.  The hereto risk-free assets – officially recognised as such in the Basel Accords, and unofficially used historically as hedges and safe haven instruments by institutional and retail investors – are no longer risk-free.  How did we get here? The sickness underlying…

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