Interactive Investor – Japan’s Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co said on Monday it planned to cut its unhedged foreign bond holdings while increasing its hedged foreign bond holdings this business year to offset currency risks.

The nation’s third-largest life insurer by assets also said it has been experimenting with trades in yen swap rates since March to seek higher yields, and said it would boost its yen bond holdings mostly in super-long Japanese government bonds.

Meiji Yasuda said it planned to reduce its unhedged foreign bond holdings by about 100 billion yen ($997 million), and raise its currency-hedged foreign bond holdings by 200 billion yen in the year to March 2010.

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Wall Street & Technology – Global investors boosted their equity holdings for the second month running in December and cut bonds, thanks to signs of stabilising stock markets and tumbling government bond yields, Reuters polls showed on Monday.

Surveys of 44 leading investment houses in the United States, Japan, continental Europe and Britain showed an average mixed-asset portfolio holding 56.0 percent in stocks, up from 54.8 percent in November. However, it still remained below the long-term average holding of almost 60 percent.

Bond holdings fell to 33.0 percent in December from 34.3 percent the previous month, above the long-term average of around 32 percent.

Cash rose to 5.4 percent from 5.3 percent.

A rise in the respondents’ equity holdings comes as world stocks, measured by MSCI, rose nearly 20 percent after hitting a 5-1/2 year low on November 21.

A round of central bank interest rate cuts worldwide and the introduction of fiscal stimulus packages in major developed and emerging economies have helped convince many investors that stock markets might bottom before long.

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