Stomach Chance: Japanese Investors and Nomura Securities

stomach chance: They are worried about the third surprise after the U.K.'s Brexit referendum and U.S. Presidential election last year said Hideki Kishida, senior strategist at Nomura Securities, according to The Japan Times. While most investors see the chance of Le Pen winning as slim, risk-averse Japanese investors remain in no mood to stomach the chance of a victory, which could lead to a plunge in French debt prices. Japanese investors, who were major foreign buyers of French debt last year, sold 1.58 trillion of French bonds in February, surpassing a previous record of 1.25 trillion marked in June 2015. French voters go the polls on April 23 and May 7 in the two-round election, which is being closely followed outside France as another test of popular discontent with traditional parties and institutions such as the European Union. Such worries drove the premium investors demand for holding French bonds over benchmark German debts to around 0.84 percent in February, hitting the highest level since 2012. Le Pen's anti-EU stance has prompted investors to price in various risks, including the possibility that French bonds may be redeemed in a new national currency, such as a resurrected franc, not the euro. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.