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from Anatole Kaletsky:
The radical force of ‘Abenomics’
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in the cockpit of T-4 training jet at the Japan Air Self-Defense Force base in Higashimatsushima, Miyagi prefecture, May 12, 2013. REUTERS/Kyodo
'The 3.5 percent gross domestic product growth announced by Tokyo Wednesday suggests that Japan may be the fastest-growing economy in the G7. Since the Tokyo stock market hit bottom exactly six months ago, the Nikkei share index has soared almost 80 percent. Meanwhile, the yen has experienced its biggest six-month move against the dollar. All these events appear linked to the election of Shinzo Abe and the regime he has installed at the Bank of Japan.
Even after 20 years of stagnation, Japan remains the world’s third-largest economy, with a 2012 GDP of $6 trillion, equal to France, Italy and Spain combined. Financiers, business leaders and economists everywhere are starting to ask the obvious question: Is Japan finally taking the truly radical action required to fix its economy and end its “lost decades”?
This, however, is the wrong question. It confounds two very different issues – which need to be carefully distinguished to understand what’s happening in Japan.
from Breakingviews:
Three-digit yen no longer a one-way bet
By Andy Mukherjee
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The yen is no longer a one-way bet. The Japanese currency has slumped to 100 against the dollar for the first time in four years. That’s a 16 percent slide since Shinzo Abe’s landslide election victory in December. At the time, Breakingviews predicted his victory would herald a three-digit yen. But there are good reasons to be sceptical about a further decline.
from Global Investing:
Japan’s big-money investors still sitting tight
More on the subject of Japanese overseas investment.
As we said here and here, Japanese cash outflows to world markets have so far been limited to a trickle, almost all from retail mom-and-pop investors who like higher yields and are estimated to have 1500 trillion yen ($15.40 trillion) in savings. As for Japan's huge institutional investors -- the $730 billion mutual fund industry and $3.4 trillion life insurance sectors -- they are sitting tight.
If some are to be believed, the hype over outflows is misguided. Morgan Stanley for one reckons Japanese insurers' foreign bond buying may rise by just 2-3 percent in the next two years, amounting to $60-100 billion. Pension funds are even less likely to re-balance their portfolios given large cash flow needs, the bank said.
from Global Investing:
Show us the (Japanese) money
Where is the Japanese money? Mostly it has been heading back to home shores as we wrote here yesterday.
The assumption was that the Bank of Japan's huge money-printing campaign would push Japanese retail and institutional investors out in search of yield. Emerging markets were expected to capture at least part of a potentially huge outflow from Japan and also benefit from rising allocations from other international funds as a result. But almost a month after the BOJ announced its plans, the cash has not yet arrived.
from Global Investing:
Amid yen weakness, some Asian winners
Asian equity markets tend to be casualties of weak yen. That has generally been the case this time too, especially for South Korea.
Data from our cousins at Lipper offers some evidence to ponder, with net outflows from Korean equity funds at close to $700 million in the first three months of the year. That's the equivalent of about 4 percent of the total assets held by those funds. The picture was more stark for Taiwan funds, for whom a similar net outflow equated to almost 10 percent of total AuM. Look more broadly though and the picture blurs; Asia ex-Japan equity funds have seen net inflows of more than $3 billion in the first three months of the year, according to Lipper data.
from Global Investing:
No one-way bet on yen, HSBC says
Will the yen continue to weaken?
Most people think so -- analysts polled by Reuters this month predict that the Japanese currency will fall 18 percent against the dollar this year. That will bring the currency to around 102 per dollar from current levels of 98. And all sorts of trades, from emerging debt to euro zone periphery stocks, are banking on a world of weak yen.
Now here is a contrary view. David Bloom, HSBC's head of global FX strategy, thinks one-way bets on the yen could prove dangerous. Here are some of the points he makes in his note today:
from The Great Debate:
Casting doubt on Japan’s new economic experiment
Almost exactly a decade ago, Ben Bernanke visited Tokyo as a member of the Federal Reserve Board – he was not yet the powerful Fed chairman – and gave some shocking advice to his Japanese counterparts. Surveying the country’s abysmal record of deflation, Bernanke recommended that the Bank of Japan set an explicit inflation target and embark on a massive program of buying government debt to help achieve that goal.
It took a perplexingly long time for the advice to be heeded. Last week, Japan’s new central bank governor, Haruhiko Kuroda, announced that he hoped to achieve 2 percent inflation within two years from the current deflation of -0.70 percent.
from MacroScope:
From one central banking era to another: beware the consequences
Paul Volcker’s inflation-fighting era as chairman of the Federal Reserve is quite the opposite of today’s U.S. central bank, which is battling to kick start growth and even stave off deflation with trillions in bond purchases. And it is polar opposite of where the Bank of Japan finds itself today, doubling down on easing to lift inflation expectations after two decades of Japanese stagnation. After all, Volcker ratcheted up interest rates in 1979 and the early 1980s to tame the inflation that had been choking the United States.
So it may come as no real surprise that, talking to students and faculty at New York University on Monday, he had a few concerns about where the world’s ultra accommodative central banks are headed.
from Global Investing:
Less yen for carry this time
The Bank of Japan unleashed its full firepower this week, pushing the yen to 3-1/2 year lows of 97 per dollar. Year-to-date, the currency is down 11 percent to the dollar. But those hoping for a return to the carry trade boom of yesteryear may wait in vain.
The weaker yen of pre-crisis years was a strong plus for emerging assets, especially for high-yield currencies. Japanese savers chased rising overseas currencies by buying high-yield foreign bonds and as foreigners sold used cheap yen funding for interest rate carry trades. But there's been little sign of a repeat of that behaviour as the yen has fallen sharply again recently .
from Breakingviews:
Kuroda does what he can for BOJ’s inflation goal
By Andy Mukherjee
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
The Bank of Japan’s new chief has dumped his predecessor’s timid script. Haruhiko Kuroda has crafted an ambitious new plan to end the country’s chronic deflation.
