Dec 12, 2014 | Featured, Japan
October saw the BoJ’s announcement of increased stimulus, coordinated with the new targets for the GPIF, 25% each for foreign and domestic equities (up from 12% each), and a decrease in JGBs, from 60% to 35% of holdings. Investors, both Japanese and foreign, have...
Nov 17, 2014 | Asia, Japan
Further yen weakness, in an environment of slowing global growth, will put pressure on other central banks to ease policy. Although attention is rightly focused on the ECB, Japan’s biggest trade partners, who derive significant parts of GDP from trade with Japan, are...
Feb 19, 2013 | Global Economy, Japan
The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges has a short a story about two lifelong rivals, villains to the core, who are finally captured by the authorities and sentenced to death for their misdemeanors. The officer in charge of the execution, a gambling man himself,...
Feb 12, 2013 | European Economy, Global Economy, Japan, Monetary Policy
The Euro is making headlines again, this time not due to its possible imminent disappearance as a currency but rather as a result of what many regard as its undue strength. Last week’s press briefing comments by ECB President Mario Draghi to the effect that...
Nov 2, 2012 | Asia, Fiscal Policy, Global Economy, Japan, Monetary Policy
The Japanese economy continues to weaken and a recession is now the main consensus. The country’s trade balance, which was long in surplus, is now moving deeper and deeper into deficit and the third quarter numbers almost certainly will show contraction, and these are...
