After trading overnight in Asia, Japan’s government bond market is within a hair’s breadth of setting new record lows. The 10-year JGB is within a basis point and a fraction of one while the 5-year JGB has only 2 bps to reach. It otherwise seems at odds with the mainstream narrative at least where Japan’s economy is concerned. Record lows [...]
Last week, Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda unleashed a mini-controversy with remarks he now claims were taken somewhat out of context. On March 2, speaking before Japan’s parliament, the central banker sure sounded quite confident: Right now, the members of the policy board and I think that prices will move to reach 2 percent in around fiscal 2019. So [...]
Household spending in February 2016 in Japan rose year-over-year for the first time in six months. That was the sum total of any good economic news for the monetary-stricken economy, and it doesn’t really survive closer inspection. The rise in spending was due largely to “other” activities you don’t associate with strong economic rebounds. The overall figure was just +1.6% [...]
Japanese exports continue to rise, but as we have seen in actual results elsewhere, both anecdotal and empirical, it’s a mirage driven by changes in the unit of measure (yen). Total exports from Japan rose 18.6% in yen terms, the highest growth rate since the middle of 2010. The problem was that imports also rose, by 26.1% as energy importation [...]
Stay In Touch