Last week was another down week for the Nikkei, albeit very limited, but the Friday close of 13,942 was over 3.5% off the weekly high and the second consecutive week of a sub-14,000 finish. So, while the Nikkei had been showing signs of promise and not simply selling-off on every piece of bad news, a […]

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In “Hollowing Out, Tokyo Style,” FT Alphaville’s Gwen Robinson does a fine job of capturing an ongoing, and now accelerating human resources conundrum. While it seems like there’s no shortage lately of fake Japundits (not to be confused with the real Japundit, who is simply trying to keep it real on the cultural front) […]

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Last week’s question of resiliency or reluctance at 14,000 for the Nikkei 225 Stock Average was answered, somewhat predictably, with another late-week rally. The Nikkei ended the week higher by 2.3% to 14,338.54 and the broader TOPIX, which rose by the same amount, recouped the 1,400-level (1,408.14) for the first time since January 10th.
This week, […]

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What to watch: Earnings reporting continues; JGB activity (unprecedented サーキットブレーカー (circuit breaker) action last Friday; rising yields but equity yields still attractive to the 10-year); Tues./Wed., April 29 -30: FOMC rate decision meeting; Wed., April 30: Bank of Japan (BoJ) monetary policy meeting; March - Industrial production; March - New housing starts; March - Unemployment […]

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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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