The best Japan ETF to buy right now will do one of two things.
It will either play the surging Japanese stock market. Or, it will short the yen. The Nikkei 225 index is up 7.2% so far this year. The yen has fallen 16% in the last 12 months.
By Jim Bach, Associate Editor, Money Morning • @JimBach22 -
The best Japan ETF to buy right now will do one of two things.
It will either play the surging Japanese stock market. Or, it will short the yen. The Nikkei 225 index is up 7.2% so far this year. The yen has fallen 16% in the last 12 months.
By Jim Bach, Associate Editor, Money Morning • @JimBach22 -
The best Japan ETF to buy right now will do one of two things.
It will either play the surging Japanese stock market. Or, it will short the yen. The Nikkei 225 index is up 7.2% so far this year. The yen has fallen 16% in the last 12 months.
By Guest Editorial, Money Morning -
The Bank of Japan (BOJ), Japan's central bank, bowed to government pressure this week by adopting a 2% inflation target and accepting responsibility for achieving that goal "as early as possible."
The BOJ announced today (Tuesday) that it will begin a program of "unlimited easing" beginning in January 2014 following the end of the central bank's current asset-purchasing program in December.
In a statement announcing the results of Tuesday's Monetary Policy Committee meeting, the Bank of Japan said it anticipates purchasing 10 trillion yen in Treasury notes and 3 trillion yen in Japanese government bonds (JGBs) each month beginning in January 2014.
The statement also indicated the central bank's balance sheet will expand by about 10 trillion yen by the end of 2014 as a result of the purchases. No further expansion of the BOJ balance sheet is anticipated thereafter.
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By Guest Editorial, Money Morning -
Japan's newly elected Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is taking aggressive measures in an attempt to end the deflationary spiral that has plagued the Japanese economy for more than twenty years.
The return of Abe's Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to power in a landslide election victory last month is seen as a mandate to do whatever it takes to revive the flagging Japanese economy.
One of the first policies likely to be put into place is the passage of a massive supplementary budget for fiscal 2012 (the year ending March 31, 2013). Depending upon how you count it, the budget ranges from 10 trillion yen ($112 billion) to 20 trillion yen ($224 billion).
Observers have expressed concern over the size of the stimulus and what impact it might have on Japan's sovereign credit rating and on the Japanese government bond (JGB) market, plus what it could do to the U.S. economy.
Let's take a look.
The supplementary budget is nothing but good, old-fashioned pork barrel spending; the kind of money politics the LDP was known for when they governed Japan for more than 50 years.
What is new and different about Prime Minister Abe's approach to reviving the Japanese economy is his strong arm tactics against the Bank of Japan (BoJ), Japan's central bank.
BoJ independence was enshrined in law only in 1999. Abe has run roughshod over the intent of the law by demanding that retiring BoJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa sign a written document agreeing to do whatever is necessary-generally considered to be "unlimited easing"-to achieve an inflation target of 2% over the medium-term.
At its last Monetary Policy Committee (the equivalent of the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee) meeting, which took place just after Abe's landslide election victory, the BoJ agreed to review its policy goals and come back in January with updated policy recommendations. The next Monetary Policy Committee meeting takes place over two days on Jan. 21 and 22.
Press reports indicate that the BoJ will roll over and do pretty much whatever Abe wants - and here's why.
By Keith Fitz-Gerald, Chief Investment Strategist, Money Map Report -
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By Martin Hutchinson, Global Investing Specialist, Money Morning -
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