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This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Economy Watchers Survey (Nov.) …
8th December 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Perceptions trump reality on the yen …
7th December 2009
The slump in business spending in Q3 revealed in today’s Ministry of Finance (MoF) survey is partly old news, but the quarterly profile points to a substantial downward revision to the GDP data for the quarter. We have cut our Q3 GDP estimate to +0.3% …
3rd December 2009
The markets are right to be underwhelmed by the Bank of Japan’s announcement of a fresh injection of liquidity. An even longer period of ultra-loose monetary policy will maintain the downward pressure on government bond yields, but will have little impact …
1st December 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Output, PMI, Pay & Housing Starts (Oct./Nov.) …
30th November 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … What’s happening in Japan’s labour market? …
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … CPI, Unemployment and Spending (Oct.) …
27th November 2009
The continued recovery in Japanese exports in October supports our view that GDP growth will not slow as much in the fourth quarter as most seem to expect. However, a sharp fall in imports last month and another decline in the non-manufacturing component …
25th November 2009
Japanese equities may be on the defensive, pressured by policy uncertainty, fiscal worries and deflation fears, but the real economy is continuing to recover strongly. We expect GDP growth to surprise the markets on the upside for a few quarters yet. … …
24th November 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … How big a threat is deflation to the recovery? …
23rd November 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … A refreshingly simple exit strategy …
18th November 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Is Japan facing a sovereign debt crisis? …
16th November 2009
The falls in the main balances of Japan’s Economy Watchers Survey in October suggest that the recovery lost a little momentum at the start of the fourth quarter. Nonetheless, growth was probably unsustainably strong in the third quarter and these balances …
10th November 2009
The Bank of Japan has announced a timetable for the withdrawal of some emergency facilities that have become increasingly redundant. But the Bank’s own forecasts of persistent deflation confirm that the most important monetary stimulus (in the form of …
30th October 2009
Looking beyond the headline year-on-year figures, Japan’s export volumes jumped again in the third quarter. The strength of the yen is not an insurmountable hurdle as long as global demand is rebounding, although exporters’ margins are being squeezed to …
22nd October 2009
The Bank of Japan’s silence on when it will end its purchases of bank-owned corporate debt is being interpreted by some as a lack of faith in the recovery and by others as a response to government pressure. To our mind, it was simply too soon to expect an …
14th October 2009
The Bank of Japan’s September Tankan survey released today showed a further improvement in the business conditions faced by large manufacturers and large non-manufacturers. But the pick-up in sentiment amongst smaller companies, which are most focused on …
1st October 2009
The Bank of Japan’s quarterly Tankan survey (released on 1st October) will show a marked improvement in business conditions faced by large manufacturers. However, a rebound in sentiment among smaller companies, and in non-manufacturing, would be much more …
25th September 2009
As usual, the headlines today have focused on the continued weakness of Japanese exports in year-onyear terms. But the more revealing monthly profile shows a sixth successive increase. … Japanese exports continue to …
24th September 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Deflation and near-zero rates to last for years …
11th September 2009
The Japanese economy posted the strongest rebound in the G7 in Q2, but was also first into recession and had previously suffered the sharpest falls in activity. Massive amounts of spare capacity will keep investment weak, while the pickup in consumer …
2nd September 2009
It is tempting to dismiss the significance of the surge in Japanese unemployment as a lagging indicator, but this would be a mistake. With nominal wages already falling outright, growing excess labour increases the threat of a downward spiral in wages and …
28th August 2009
Confirmation of a decisive Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) victory in Sunday’s general election in Japan should provide a further near-term boost to the Nikkei and possibly the yen too, but this outcome is already widely anticipated. The upside may …
27th August 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Japan GDP (Q2 Prelim.) …
17th August 2009
Japan’s renewed slide into deflation does not appear to have prevented the economy from rebounding last quarter – indeed the boost to real incomes may actually have helped. However, there is a growing risk that the recovery stalls as deflationary …
31st July 2009
The Bank of Japan’s data on external trade, released this morning, suggest that Japanese exports rebounded by more than 12% q/q in the second quarter. This supports our long-held view that Japan will have returned to positive quarterly GDP growth in Q2 – …
23rd July 2009
The unexpected downward revisions to the Bank of Japan’s GDP forecasts have unnerved the markets, but we would not read too much into them. In contrast, the decision to prolong the “temporary” measures which are helping to support the financial system and …
15th July 2009
Japanese consumer confidence remained on its relatively impressive upward trend in June, helped by the latest fiscal stimulus. However, this has come too late to rescue the government, which is facing oblivion in the Lower House elections confirmed today …
13th July 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … More work still to do …
10th July 2009
Today’s headlines from Japan have focused on the continued weakness of machinery orders in May. But we would pay more attention to the continued recovery in the more timely surveys of business confidence, notably the Economy Watchers Survey. … How …
8th July 2009
The 5.9% m/m increase in industrial production in May, which followed an identical rise in April, supports our long-held view that Japan will be among the first of the major economies to return to growth. However, a lacklustre global recovery and …
29th June 2009
There are good reasons to expect Japanese equities to prove relatively resilient even if foreign appetite fades again: the market is much less overvalued than it used to be; Japan is poised to enjoy a stronger rebound than other major developed economies; …
24th June 2009
The renewed acceleration in the pace of decline in Japanese exports in May on a year-on-year basis has raised concerns that the fledgling recovery is already faltering. However, a closer look at the data shows that export volumes rose sharply …
The Japanese economy appears to be on track for a decent recovery. The key measures of business and consumer sentiment are rebounding and the April releases brought the first real evidence that this is being reflected in the activity data. However, we …
Japan’s Business Outlook Survey (BOS), released this morning, has allowed us to firm up our forecast for the Q2 Tankan survey, released on 1st July. We now forecast that the headline index (current conditions reported by large manufacturers) will rebound …
22nd June 2009
The Bank of Japan shows no signs of repeating its past mistake of tightening policy prematurely, as was the case in both 2000 and 2006. Interest rates will remain near-zero for the foreseeable future. … Bank of Japan won’t lead a rush for the …
16th June 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Job done? …
12th June 2009
The further recovery in Japanese consumer confidence in May is a necessary but unfortunately not sufficient condition for a sustained rebound in household spending. … Japan’s households less pessimistic, spending to remain …
The jump in Japanese export volumes in April gets the second quarter off to a flying start. Combined with the improvement in the forward-looking survey data it looks increasingly likely that GDP will record positive quarterly growth in the second quarter …
27th May 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Japan GDP (Q1 Prelim.) …
20th May 2009
The jump in the Economy Watchers Survey of business conditions in April provides some of the best evidence yet that the Japanese economy is past the worst. However, while the recent rebound is impressive, the results are still in recession territory. … …
13th May 2009
The jump in Japan’s unemployment rate from 4.4% to 4.8% in March (consensus 4.6%) removes some of the shine from yesterday’s better manufacturing data. What’s more, unemployment has much further to rise. During the last economic cycle the unemployment …
1st May 2009
The rise in industrial production in March and projections of further increases in April and May support our view that the Japanese economy could start to grow again as soon as the current quarter. The rebound in the manufacturing PMI from 33.8 in March …
30th April 2009
Today’s March trade figures allow us to firm up our estimates for Japanese GDP in the first quarter and have an educated guess (with only a little imagination) at the second quarter too. The economy probably shrank by another 3.5% or so in Q1. But GDP is …
22nd April 2009
The improvement in consumer confidence reported this morning is consistent with our view that the Japanese economy could start growing again as early as the current quarter. Admittedly, any recovery in sentiment or activity needs to be seen in the context …
17th April 2009
The Bank of Japan further widened the range of eligible collateral in its money market operations after its Policy Board meeting today, although it is hard to avoid the feeling that it is now scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of assets that can …
7th April 2009
Today’s reports that Japan is planning another fiscal stimulus, which will include more than ¥10 trillion (2% of GDP) in additional spending, are little surprise. But they do raise the question of whether this is affordable. As discussed in our latest …
6th April 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Japan Tankan Survey (Mar.) …
1st April 2009
This report is only available as a PDF. Click to download. … Japan Activity Data & PMI (Feb./Mar.) …
31st March 2009
The Bank of Japan’s “Tankan” survey, released next Wednesday (1st April), will doubtless show that business conditions worsened further in the first quarter, but probably not by as much as the markets currently anticipate. We also expect the survey to …
23rd March 2009
