More on Japanese retail investors participating in carry trade

According to Marketwatch, "Analysts said the yen has also been pressured by growing appetites for risk among Japanese individuals who are borrowing in yen to fund positions in higher-yielding currencies. Currency trading by Japanese individuals rose to record $11 billion per day in the fiscal year ended in March -- a threefold increase from a year earlier, according to figures from Tokyo firm

Japan's Low Fertility

Earlier this month the Japanese Health Ministry revealed that the Total Fertility Rate (TFR) recorded in Japan rose slightly - to 1.32 babies per woman - in 2006, a figure which is up from the record low ever of 1.26 recorded in 2005.Japan's fertility rate rose last year for the first time in six years in 2006, while the number of suicides fell below the 30,000-case mark for the first time in

Japan's retail carry trade

It seems that Claus and I have been thinking along the same lines recently, that the increase in currency trading by individuals in Japan is particularly noteworthy. One fact from the Bloomberg story that Claus pointed out is that "In Japan, individuals have opened 600,000 so-called margin trading accounts at brokerages that lend money for currency bets, 80 percent more than a year ago,

Those Savvy Japanese Housewives

(Cross-post from Alpha.Sources) It has been a while since I have last reported on Japan so let us start with the basics which you may or may not already know. Last week the BOJ chose, as expected, to hold yet again on the continuing dim outlook for wages and inflation in Japan. Economic momentum as measured by investment and domestic demand seems to be doing fairly well but at the end of the

Outflow of yen from Japanese savers accelerating

That is according to Bloomberg, which has a story today describing how, referring to yen flows: ``It's reaching the point where the central bank must take rate action,'' says Hiromichi Shirakawa, a former Bank of Japan official and now chief economist at Credit Suisse Group in Tokyo. ``Capital is flowing out of Japan too quickly, making the economy vulnerable to currency fluctuations.''Driving

Unemployment in Japan

Now as we have been noting here on JEW over the last months, unemployment in Japan is trending steadily down, as can bee sen in the graph below which comes from the Labour Force Survey of the Japan Statistics bureau:Now in part the decline in unemployment is a natural response to the - largely export driven - extended economic boom Japan has been enjoying recently, but this is certainly not the

Immigration In Japan

Since the Japanese labour market is tightening all the time, and this process must have a limit given the declining labour force issue, I thought I'd take a look at the Japan immigration situation, and I found the graph I am posting below, which makes pretty sombre viewing. I think it shows what they call "flatlining".Net Migration Compared. EU, USA and JapanSource: OECD, Labour Force