Japan's Grim And Bear It 2009 Outlook

Things in Japan are looking grim. They keep getting grimmer, and it doesn't seem they will be getting less grim anytime soon. To give you some idea of what this means, only this week we learnt that Japan’s steel production fell 28 percent in December. This was the steepest decline in no less than six decades. Meanwhile Hiroshi Yoshikawa, Tokyo University professor and head of the Japanese

Exports Collapse As Consumer Confidence Continues To Fall

Japan’s exports plunged by a record in December, signaling companies will be forced to shut factory lines and fire more workers, driving the economy deeper into recession.Exports plummeted 35 percent from a year earlier, the sharpest decline since 1980, the earliest year for which there is comparable data, the Finance Ministry said today in Tokyo. The December drop eclipsed a record 26.7 percent

One New Year's Resolution Japan Badly Needs

In a week when we learn that Toyota plans to suspend production at all 12 of its Japanese plants for 11 days over the next couple of months, news which follows hot on the tails of last week's report that industrial output shrank at the fastest pace since at least 1953 in November (16.2% y-o-y), with December's Purchasing Manager Index survey - described in JPMorgan's Global Report as the weakest

Japan Industrial Production Slumps And Outright Deflation Draws Nearer

Japan’s recession evidently deepened even further in November as industrial output fell at the fastest pace in 55 years. Production plunged 8.1 percent month on month from October (Trade Ministry data) and was down an enormous 16.2% year on year. For an economy which lives from the prowess of its industrial exports, this is simply earthquake.The decline in production was the largest since data

Japan's Exports Fall Sharply In November

Japan’s exports fell the most on record in November, as global demand for cars and electronics collapsed, suggesting that more factory shutdowns and job cuts are likely as the recession deepens. Exports fell 26.7 percent from a year earlier, according to data from the Finance Ministry today (Monday). This was thus the largest fall since the data was first published in 1980.Exports to the U.S.

Did (or Didn't) Japan Just Re-introduce Quantitative Easing?

With the US Federal Reserve now adopting what is widely regarded as some variant of quantitative easing (QE), and with the Bank of Japan cutting interest rates amidst economic conditions which BoJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa describes as "severe", perhaps it is worth taking time out to have a looking at some of the earlier experience of quantitative easing in Japan, in order to ask ourselves why

Bank exposure to US credit problems

Aozora Bank..."Aozora Bank Ltd., a midsize Japanese bank, said Tuesday it has up to 12.4 billion yen ($137 million) in indirect exposure to the massive Ponzi scheme run by Wall Street money manager Bernard Madoff...the development represents an unneeded distraction for the struggling lender, whose top shareholder is U.S. private-equity fund Cerberus Capital Management."US GSE's..."Japan's