Sweden’s Riksbank Buys Aussie Bonds to Escape Low-Yield Markets

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-06-04/riksbank-buys-aussie-debt-as-low-yields-in-franc-to-yen-shunned

From Tuesday’s Bloomberg Businessweek: Goeran Robertsson, deputy head of asset management at the Riksbank (Sweden’s central bank) said in an interview yesterday.

• sold Spanish bonds and most of its Italian debt “to shield itself from Europe’s fiscal crisis”
• added Australian bonds as Australia represents “good risk diversification” since the “economy looks a bit different than Europe and they also have relatively high interest rates”
• don’t own any Japanese securities because there they have had a zero interest rate

nearly doubled its Australian bond holding to 20.5 billion kronor, or 5.6 percent of the total currency reserve, as of the end of April, from 10.4 billion kronor at the end of 2012.