Japanese life insurers dump record foreign debt in volatile July

Japan’s life insurers and pension funds sold record amounts of foreign bonds in July as heightened volatility in global debt markets damped appetite.

Lifers disposed of a net ¥1.56 trillion ($11.5 billion) of the securities while trust banks’ trust accounts, which are seen as proxies for pension funds, sold ¥865.8 billion of the notes, according to preliminary data from the Finance Ministry. Both sales amounts were the highest ever for the two groups.