Japan Economics Weekly FX intervention looking increasingly likely With the yen hitting a fresh multi-decade low against the dollar this week, the Ministry of Finance is signaling a growing likelihood of intervention in the foreign exchange markets. However, the Bank... 12th April 2024 · 7 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Ueda signals low bar for further rate hikes Bank of Japan Governor Ueda today indicated that it wouldn't take much for the Bank to hike interest rates further in the second half of the year. The extreme labour shortages coupled with persistent... 5th April 2024 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Government readies for FX intervention With the yen weakening to a fresh 34-year low against the dollar, the Ministry of Finance signaled that an intervention in the foreign exchange markets is imminent. However, the yen will certainly not... 28th March 2024 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly BoJ won’t hike rates any further With underlying inflation continuing to moderate, we don’t expect the Bank of Japan to follow up the ending of negative interest rates with further policy rate hikes. But while the Bank has kept its... 22nd March 2024 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Shunto tide should lift wage growth among small firms This year’s spring wage negotiations resulted in the largest pay hikes since 1991 and we estimate that participating workers will receive a base pay hike of around 3.5%. While it’s mostly the large... 15th March 2024 · 7 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Shunto bonanza opens door to March rate hike Developments over the past week have increased the chances that the Bank of Japan will end negative rates in March rather than our current forecast of April. Meanwhile, with childbirths hitting a... 8th March 2024 · 4 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly BoJ will not be swayed by weak industrial output We doubt that the slump in industrial output in January will prevent the Bank of Japan from ending negative rates over the coming months, but the recent string of disappointing data reinforces our... 1st March 2024 · 6 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Is the plunge in imports the canary in the coalmine? Given that GDP has already contracted for two consecutive quarters, the plunge in imports in January and the fall in the manufacturing PMI to the lowest level since 2020 in February hardly instill... 23rd February 2024 · 8 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Weak activity won’t forestall BoJ tightening plans While Japan's GDP contracted for the second consecutive quarter, other data overwhelmingly point to the economy holding up rather than falling into recession. And while the third consecutive fall in... 16th February 2024 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Consumers should be feeling a little brighter in 2024 The upcoming GDP data are likely to confirm that Japanese consumers had a dismal 2023, with spending falling for most of the year. Healthy increases in nominal wages and lower inflation should put... 8th February 2024 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly End-year bonuses will signal strength of wage pressure The upcoming wage and bonus data for the end of 2023 will provide a check on the temperature of Japan’s labour market. They will show that earnings are still being outstripped by inflation. But what... 2nd February 2024 · 5 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly BoJ will probably hike in April rather than March Most of the plunge in inflation in Tokyo in January was driven by one-off factors that the Bank of Japan is stripping out from its inflation gauges. However, the underlying trend in inflation... 26th January 2024 · 6 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly BoJ will normalise rather than tighten policy While headline inflation will jump in February due to base effects from the launch of energy subsidies, underlying inflation will continue to moderate, with services inflation set to fall below 2%... 19th January 2024 · 7 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Window for policy normalisation not closing just yet While the economic data released this week suggest that the case for tighter policy is diminishing, inflation is set to rebound and wage growth will strengthen again before long. Accordingly, we still... 12th January 2024 · 6 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Japanese stocks will continue to underperform As we had anticipated, the outperformance of the Topix against the S&P 500 has unraveled as the yen has strengthened against the dollar. And with Japanese manufacturing losing ground abroad and... 5th January 2024 · 6 mins read
Japan Economics Weekly Bank of Japan will wait until March before hiking rates Bank of Japan Governor Ueda indicated this week that the Bank won’t make any policy changes at its upcoming meeting in January as it wants to see the results of next year’s spring wage negotiations... 22nd December 2023 · 8 mins read
