Japan

As Treasury bond yields tumble to record lows we’re hearing lots of talk the U.S. is following the economic trajectory of Japan. Not so fast! Take a look at the following chart.

As I see it, Japan’s problem was that during the 1980s it was so addicted to investment-led growth and artificially cheap financing that it misallocated capital on a massive scale and failed to include the resulting implicit losses in its…

The impact of Fed Chairman Bernanke’s testimony – his assessment of the economy and the further accommodation that can be provided to stem economic stresses into next week - will dominate market action into the next week. The G10 currency…

Former Fed nominee and Nobel Laureate Peter Diamond spoke to Bloomberg News about how he sees the economic difficulties the United States faces. His view is that America faces a jobs crisis in the here and now and that deficit reduction is…

The yen is a safe haven. That assertion seems so obvious, that why it is the case is rarely explored. It does not seem to be a function, as some suggest, of its trade surplus, but rather its position as a net international investment…

PIMCO, the world’ largest bond fund call this suppression of yields financial repression because it means savers and bond investors get negative real returns. However, John Hempton pointed out that in Japan, where this monetary policy is…

The Bank of Japan held a private briefing with a small group of analysts from leading financial institutions in their NY rep office. The Director-General of the Research and Statistics Department led the presentation. This column…

Something interesting is being played out. Margin traders--the famed Mrs Watanabe-- at the Tokyo Futures Exchange--have amassed a large short yen position. There are about 900k short yen contracts as of today and about 364k are short yen…

Officials from Japan and Switzerland have stepped up their rhetoric protesting the price action that has propelled their respective currencies sharply higher. Contrary to market anxiety the risk of intervention remains low and lower for the…

Below is a nice little interview with Hedge Fund manager Hugh Hendry . The headline quote was his way of showing us he doesn’t take himself too seriously. But his underlying message is that he believes it pays to really massage the most…