What to watch: Monday, 3/31: February Industrial Production; Tuesday, 4/1: Tankan (watch capex spending outlook and yen/dollar predictions — the FY07 second-half ¥/$ prediction for the December survey was 113.79 compared to 114.23-33 in the Sept. and Mar. surveys and a most recent quote of about ¥99).

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Aside from comparatively low valuations (pe, pbr, etc) and high yields, two other positives supporting Japanese stocks at current levels are share buybacks and retiring of treasury stock. By way of an article published by the Nikkei on Sunday, the WSJ reports Tokyo-listed companies are expected to have canceled more than 1.11 billion shares worth […]

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What to watch: Monday, 3/24: Business Outlook Survey; Land Prices; Friday, 3/28: CPI
Ongoing: BoJ disarray (Nikkei reports results of a poll showing 41% of respondents blame LDP for chief-seat vacancy vs. 27% for DPJ); Pointless speculation of rate cut (next BoJ rate decision meeting April 8-9); Fukuda Cabinet support rate drops 9 points m-o-m to […]

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Global central bank rates (Brazil, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico, UK, ECB, Canada, Switzerland, USA, Japan) as of March 21, 2008.

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Top foreign holders of U.S. Treasuries as of January 2008. Table (and chart) below shows respective % of total and y-o-y changes.

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It’s no big secret that growth in real demand for commodities is nowhere near as much as the growth in daily trading of derivative contracts. Still, UBS Global Asset Management’s Tom Digenan (by way of USAA Financial Newsletters) has a chart showing actual oil demand grew to 85.9 million bpd in 2007 from 74.6 million […]

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Japanese stocks rallied Wednesday, but not quite as high as may have been expected after the big gains in the states and in Chicago Nikkei 225 futures. Japanese ADRs gave back a lot of their prior day gains Wednesday. A number of ADRs had declines of more than 5%: FUJIFILM (FUJI: 33.0799 0.00%), Mitsui & […]

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Thought the Dow’s 3.5% rally and the Nasdaq and S&P 500’s 4.2% gains were big? Take a look at the 5.5% surge in N225 futures in Chicago. The last quote was at 12,460. A late $/¥ quote shows a recovery of the 100-level. A quick review of Investing in Japan’s listing of Japanese ADRs shows […]

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One argument against the negative bias (for Japanese companies) of a strong yen goes something like this: a stronger yen reduces the impact of high commodity prices, such as oil, which particularly helps the likes of consumers and smaller companies. I said as much, stating the obvious, last November (see here). At that time, Chief […]

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The Nikkei 225 has been a marked laggard compared to regional and global benchmarks over the past year. To make matters worse, the Nikkei fails to sustain rallies and faces ongoing sell pressure resulting in new multi-year lows of late (now at 2 years and 7 months). As of Friday’s (3/14) close of 12,241, the […]

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