China's central bank said on Friday it has suspended treasury bond purchases, triggering a jump in yields and spurring speculation that the move was aimed at defending a falling currency.

Aging populations, as Japan taught us, are inherently deflationary. Folks in their 70s don’t spend the way 20-somethings do. With the unemployment rate for Chinese between 16 and 24 stuck above 17% —or higher given the vagaries of Beijing’s data—what good will subsidies and rebates do?

The unexpected action is intended to tamp down a potential bubble in the bond market fueled by investors shunning riskier assets like stocks and real estate.

China's central bank said on Friday it has decided to suspend treasury bond purchases temporarily due to short supply of the bonds, triggering a jump in yields across tenors. The People's Bank of China (PBOC) said in a statement it would resume bond buying depending on supply and demand in the government bond market.

The People's Bank of China (PBC) announced on Friday that it has decided to temporarily suspend treasury bond purchases in the open market, starting from this month. The central bank said the decision was made as demand exceeded supply on the government bond market recently,

China’s central bank expanded its gold reserves for a second month in December, signaling renewed appetite after temporarily pausing purchases last year as prices soared.

A statement from the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) from January 10 revealed that the central bank had halted government bond purchases as the supply remained lower than the bonds’ demand. The PBOC mentioned that the purchases would resume after properly monitoring the government bonds market supply and demand.

The People's Bank of China said Friday that it will suspend purchases of sovereign debt this month as the supply of the bonds has fallen short of demand. Christy Tan, investment strategist at Franklin Templeton Institute,

China’s central bank said it will suspend buying government bonds, its latest attempt to temper investor bets on weak economic growth that have undermined the currency and sapped confidence among businesses and consumers.