Julius Baer | Japan’s Q2 growth missed forecasts, confirming expectations for a sluggish economy, on weak exports and business investment. GDP expanded at an annualised pace of 0.2%, missing estimates for a 0.7% increase.
UBS | Non-Japan Asian private debt is now the highest in the world for any major region and is climbing toward 170% of GDP. As we have argued in our Debtopia thesis since 2013, rising leverage will increasingly result in diminishing marginal benefits to economies and profits when debt becomes excessive.
Guntram B. Wolff via Caixin | G-20 ministers in Shanghai appeared to be aware of the importance of structural work. In particular, there was agreement in our panel discussions that the Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) project of the OECD was an essential element to deal with tax avoidance and ensure that profits are taxed where economic activity generating it takes place.
UBS | We believe China and Japan will play significant roles as regional economic patrons over the next few years. We estimate the amount of patro – dollars, namely China’s outward direct investment in the ‘One Belt One Road’ regions, will exceed US$200bn in 2016 – 18.
Japan’s economy contracts in Q2, as exports and consumer spending shrink.
BNP Paribas | June 4, 2015 | In many respects the Japanese QE experience since 2013 is a pretty good playbook for European equities.
May 25, 2015 | By Benjamin Cole via Marcus Nunes‘Historinhas | The International Monetary Fund on May 22 badgered the Bank of Japan to adopt a more aggressive growth stance, even though the island nation posted Q1 real GDP growth of 2.4%, and an annual inflation rate of 2.3%—along with an unemployment rate of 3.4%.
May 21, 2015 | By Benjamin Cole via Marcus’ Nunes Historinhas | If you don’t like quantitative easing, then consider this: The Nikkei 225, a broad measure of Japan’s stock market, is up 45.9% in the last 52 weeks.
The Corner | April 16, 2015 | For the first time since the beginning of the financial crisis, Japan overtook China as first holder of U.S. treasuries. Low rates and other monetary policy instruments carried out by Japan have prompted local investors to move their money to the US.
By Shinichiro Kadota, Tal Shapsa at Barclays | March 23, 2015 | Japan’s Flow of Funds data show that Japanese investors continued to rebalance their portfolio away from domestic bonds into foreign assets in Q4 14, while their flows into domestic equities were more muted. Such dynamics were evident throughout 2014, as Japanese investors accumulated foreign assets at a solid pace.