Japan 01 (May 08 - Dec 09)

Re: Japan

Postby kennynah » Sat Aug 29, 2009 1:45 pm


The jobless rate, which increased from 5.4 per cent in June, was worse than the 5.5 per cent that financial markets had expected.

It is unwelcome news for Prime Minister Taro Aso, whose long-ruling party is trailing well behind the opposition in opinion polls ahead of Sunday's general election.


at least...in their foresaken land... the people can still vote...ALL OF THEM get to vote and possibly oust a government if it has proven to be ineffective in combating the problems of the day....

this is democracy....
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Re: Japan

Postby winston » Sun Sep 13, 2009 7:34 pm

Landslide Election Victory in Japan Will Lead to an Avalanche of Future Profits For Global Investors
By Martin Hutchinson, Money Morning

When it comes to Japan, political change should translate into long-term profits for global investors.

After 54 years of near-single-party rule – not to mention two decades of economic malaise – it’s not surprising that voters eager for change delivered a landslide election victory to the opposition in that key Asian nation.

Last weekend’s Japanese election represents a major milestone for Japan, and may well change the world’s second-largest economy in unexpected ways. Many of things we think we know about Japan may simply have been policies of a Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which has been in power for all but about 11 months over the past 54 years.

The “new Japan” may in certain respects be very different.

For example, we think of Japan as a country dedicated to exports. The big exporters are aided by cheap loans. Upon retirement, senior government bureaucrats get jobs with those exporters, a practice known as amakudari – descent from heaven. Not surprisingly, Japan runs a more or less permanent trade surplus.

Under the new Democratic Party of Japan government of Yukio Hatoyama, that may change. Hatoyama has pledged to end “amakudari” – even as he reorients the economy towards domestic spending. If he succeeds, the exporters may do less well, but the economy may be more balanced. As a result, Japan’s economy may finally begin the economic recovery that Japanese consumers have been awaiting for 20 years.

Japan is also famous for its infrastructure spending – at its peak in 2001, state-funded infrastructure spending was equal to 6.5% of that country’s gross domestic product (GDP) – a level that’s twice that of Japan, the next-biggest spender.

While anyone who has dealt with Northern Virginia traffic knows that infrastructure spending can be a good thing, much of Japan’s spending was wasted on remote rural areas, which happened to be homes to politically connected LDP barons.

( reminds me of another candidate which is busily building bridges to nowhere .. )

Hatoyama has promised to redirect about 3% of GDP from infrastructure spending to payments to individuals. He will pay each family with children $3,000 per child per year. This should help Japan’s demographic problem – its population is declining and is heavily weighted towards retirees. It will also boost consumer spending, especially among middle-income families.

Nevertheless’ Hatoyama’s policies will reorient Japan’s economy towards domestic spending. The danger is Japan’s budget deficit (8.9% of GDP in 2009, according to estimates by The Economist) and its debt. With GDP down this year and spending up, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has estimated Japan’s debt at 217% of GDP by the end of 2009. Only one country has recovered from debt that high – Britain, whose debt hit about 250% of GDP in 1815, only to reach that level again in 1945, at the end of two huge wars.

For investors, Japan looks attractive. The stock market is still trading at less than 30% of its 1990 high. However, the Japanese companies you have heard of are not the ones to buy. They are too large and too oriented towards exports. The construction companies should also be avoided – they have benefited from the fixation on infrastructure.

If you intend to trade on the Tokyo exchange, you might want to look at some of the Japanese retailers and consumer-goods companies. Even with these more-upbeat prospects, though, you should be careful not to overpay – a Price/Earnings (P/E) ratio of 20 should be your upper limit.

For those without access to the Tokyo market, there are two alternatives. One is the exchange-traded fund (ETF) covering the entire Japanese market, the iShares MSCI Japan Index (NYSE: EWJ). That has market capitalization of $5.26 billion, meaning it has adequate liquidity.

However, too much of it will also be invested in shares of the big exporters and construction companies.

The other alternative therefore is a mutual fund, the Fidelity Japan Smaller Companies Fund (Nasdaq: FJSCX). That has expenses of 1.1% and a total size of $394 million. It represents the most readily available way of investing in domestic Japan.

With the new government, Japan will look very different in a few years. Profit opportunities will arise.

As investors, we should look to capitalize on these changes – as well as the opportunities they create.

http://www.moneymorning.com/2009/09/02/japan-election/
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Re: Japan

Postby millionairemind » Wed Oct 21, 2009 8:13 pm

Not sure if this statistics is accurate or the way its interpreted is correct.

The reason being Japan is one of the fastest greying country in the OECD, and since it has a high population of retirees and retirees don't have an income......
Taken from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographi ... _structure
Age structure

(2009 est.)

0-14 years: 13.5% (male 8, 804, 465/female 8, 344, 800)
15-64 years: 64.3% (male 41, 187, 425/female 40, 533, 876)
65 years and over: 22.2% (male 11, 964, 694/female 16, 243, 419)

Oct 21, 2009
15% of Japanese in poverty

TOKYO - NEARLY one in every six Japanese lives in poverty, one of the highest rates among developed countries, according to the latest survey by Japan's welfare ministry.

In Japan's first official calculation of its relative poverty rate, the ministry said 15.7 per cent of Japanese people lived on less than half the median disposable income in 2006.

The figure, based on national statistics of income in 2006, was up from a figure of 14.6 per cent for 1997 according to the newly released ministry data.

The ratio could be worse by now as Japanese workers' salaries have fallen amid the economic slump following the 2008 global financial crisis.

Japan is confirmed to be 'among the worst' of the the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) member countries, Health, Labour and Welfare Minister Akira Nagatsuma said on Tuesday.

An OECD report showed that Japan had the fourth-highest relative poverty rate among 30 member countries in the mid-2000s - its rate came to 14.9 per cent in 2004, behind worst-ranked Mexico with 18.4 per cent, Turkey with 17.5 per cent and the United States with 17.1 per cent.

The OECD report also showed the poverty rate for working single-parent households was very high in Japan, reaching 58 per cent, far above second-worst Luxembourg with 38 per cent. -- AFP
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Re: Japan

Postby winston » Wed Oct 21, 2009 9:22 pm

At 0%, the Japanese companies still does not want to borrow. What's that telling you ?

BoJ: Demand For Loans From Japanese Firms Remain Weak

(RTTNews) - Wednesday, a survey report from the Bank of Japan showed that Japanese companies remained cautious with regards to borrowing, while banks' credit standards remained more or less unchanged.

The Bank of Japan's quarterly Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey for October showed that the index of corporate demand for loans stood at minus 14, unchanged from July's survey result. Demand for loans among large firms was unchanged at minus 10, while demand among medium-sized firms improved to minus 8 from minus 10 and that among small firms improved to minus 10 from minus 15.

The latest results reinforce the view that Japanese companies remain cautious with regards to investment, with firms still reeling from the financial crisis. Although industrial activity has picked up in recent months, it is widely attributed to temporary factors such as the inventory cycle and the various fiscal measures currently in effect at home and abroad.

With the effects of these temporary measures fading eventually, companies are more concerned about trimming down excess capacity than undertaking new investment.

October's survey also revealed that demand for housing loans worsened, with the diffusion index at minus 15 compared to minus 12 in the previous survey. On the other hand, demand for consumer loans improved to minus 9 from minus 15. Survey participants also expect demand for loans from firms in the next three months to improve modestly, with the respective index at minus 1, up from minus 3 in the June survey.

Furthermore, the index gauging banks' credit standards for approving applications from large firms rose to 6 from 5, while that among mid-sized firms worsened to 7 from 11 and that among small firms stood at 20, down from 22.

by RTT Staff Writer
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Re: Japan

Postby millionairemind » Thu Oct 22, 2009 9:19 am

Wither thy green shoots??

October 22, 2009, 8.02 am (Singapore time)

Japan Sept exports -30.7%

TOKYO - Japan's exports fell 30.7 per cent in September from a year earlier, trade data showed on Thursday, a slightly bigger drop than economists' median forecast for a 29.9 per cent fall.

On a seasonally adjusted basis, exports dropped 0.8 per cent in September from August, the third consecutive drop.

The trade balance came to a surplus of 520.6 billion yen (US$5.7 billion) compared with the median estimate for a 629.8 billion yen surplus. -- REUTERS
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Re: Japan

Postby winston » Thu Oct 22, 2009 1:52 pm

Lost Decade Is Heading Toward Two-Decade Mark: William Pesek

Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The clock is ticking. Each day that passes without Japan’s officials hunkering down to boost growth, halt deflation, prepare for an aging population and increase competitiveness is a blow to the nation’s 126 million people.

December marks the 20th anniversary of the Nikkei 225 Stock Average’s bubble-years peak of 38,915. Japan’s “Lost Decade” began soon after. In some ways, it has been two decades. The first -- 1990 to 2000 -- was a crisis-filled one. The second, which is still playing out, has been more stable, yet not without its own perils.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... JaZwX0gOpU
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Re: Japan

Postby millionairemind » Mon Nov 16, 2009 2:46 pm

Japan grows at fastest pace in over two years

By Robin Harding in Tokyo

Published: November 16 2009 01:11 | Last updated: November 16 2009 05:09

Japan’s economy grew at a stronger than expected annualised rate of 4.8 per cent in the third quarter, as fiscal stimulus supported consumer spending and net exports rose.


The temporary process of rebuilding inventories was also a big contributor, however, and with stimulus programmes such as subsidies to scrap cars due to expire, many economists are downbeat on growth in the first half of 2010.

Gross domestic product was 1.2 per cent higher than the previous quarter, according to the preliminary estimate from Japan’s cabinet office on Monday. Of that, around one-third was due to growth in private consumption, one-third was due to increased inventories, and one-third came from net exports.

There was one encouraging sign for future growth – business investment turned positive for the first time in six quarters – but housing investment continued to fall.

The 4.8 per cent annualised growth rate was well ahead of the 2.6 per cent forecast in a survey of economists by Kyodo News. It also marks an acceleration from the growth recorded in the second quarter, which was revised down to 2.3 per cent from the original estimate of 3.7 per cent.

On Saturday, Japan’s prime minister Yukio Hatoyama said the state of the economy was still “worrisome” and that another supplementary budget was “probably” warranted. Finance minister Hirohisa Fujii has said that Monday’s GDP release would be important in deciding whether to add to fiscal stimulus this year.

Japan’s new Democratic Party government is committed to measures that boost household budgets, such as cash benefits for parents, which should boost consumption over the longer term.

In the shorter term, Japan is likely to remain dependent on the strength of export markets such as China, and the degree to which those exports give business the confidence to invest.

A concern for exporters is the strength of the yen, which rose after the release of the GDP data to trade at Y89.6 to the dollar.

The Nikkei 225 stock average gained 0.13 per cent to 9,782.69 in late morning trading while the broader Topix lost 0.5 per cent to 862.75.

• Japan’s new Democratic party government was embarrassed on Monday when Masayuki Naoshima, the trade minister, leaked economic growth data more than 30 minutes before the official release.

According to local media reports, Mr Naoshima began an 8am speech to oil industry executives by saying that “the third quarter GDP figures have just been announced” and then gave details. The official release was not until 8:50am.

Governments take extreme care over the release of market sensitive data and the leak highlights the inexperience of the DPJ government, which took office in September.

“I honestly didn’t know it was due to be released at 8:50am so I thought it was OK to talk about it,” Mr Naoshima told reporters. ”I apologise for causing trouble.”

While the leak created potential for insider trading, the GDP news did not appear to reach the market before its official release. The yen, for example, fell slightly against the dollar between 8am and 8:50am, only to rise sharply once the official data came out.
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Re: Japan

Postby winston » Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:23 pm

Investors Can’t Ignore a Rebounding Japan
By Martin Hutchinson, Money Morning

In a visit to Japan in the early 1990s, U.S. President George H.W. Bush threw up over the Japanese prime minister. When President Barack Obama visited Japan last weekend, he offered an effusive bow to the Emperor Akihito.

Politically, U.S.-Japanese relations have improved dramatically during that two-decade stretch.

Yet investor regard for Japan has gone the opposite way. Twenty years ago – in the midst of the Japanese stock-and-real-estate bubble – U.S. and other world investors were kowtowing to Japanese investments – and banging their heads on the floor in the process.

http://www.moneymorning.com/2009/11/20/ ... n-japan-4/
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Re: Japan

Postby kennynah » Fri Nov 20, 2009 7:52 pm

President Barack Obama visited Japan last weekend, he offered an effusive bow to the Emperor Akihito.

should the US media play up this bit, obama should suffer a huge setback at popularity polls...

recently, with Nat Geo History Channel repeatedly broadcasting WWII and particularly the Pearl Harbour attack, the americans aren't taking it all so well towards the japanese, understandably
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Re: Japan

Postby winston » Fri Nov 27, 2009 8:25 am

Trading Notes:-

It has been a 13% correction already.

The strength in the Yen vs. USD is worrisome.

Range High: 10585
Support: 9050; 8500
Now: 9200; Down 2%
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