Tag Archive: Bank of Japan

FX Weekly Preview: Four Central Bank Meetings and More

2016-06-12

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2016-06-12

A couple of weeks ago, the four central banks that meet in the coming days were thought to be a big deal.  Numerous Federal Reserve officials were preparing the market for a summer hike. Risks of a new downturn in Japan spurred spe...

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Brexit: Switzerland Prospers outside the EU, why Can’t the UK?

2016-06-10

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2016-06-10

As the June 23rd BREXIT (the UK-wide referendum to leave the EU) vote draws near, the polls indicate a close result. Those urging a vote for the UK to remain inside the EU are suggesting increasingly...

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Three unintended consequences of NIRP

2016-05-24

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2016-05-24

Central bankers use low or negative interest rates so that it leads to more investment. For them interest rates are a consequence of the currently very low inflation rates. Patrick Watson argues differently: Falling prices are a consequence of low interest rates.

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FX Week Ahead: Evolving Investment Climate

2016-05-22

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2016-05-22

The US dollar’s weakness in recent months, despite negative interest rates in Europe and Japan likely had many contributing factors. These factors include shifting views of Fed policy, weaker US growth, the recovery in commodity prices, including oil, gold and iron ore, and market positioning.

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The Japanese Popsicle Affair

2016-05-20

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2016-05-20

  Policy-Induced Contrition in Japan As we keep saying, there really is no point in trying to make people richer by making them poorer – which is what Shinzo Abe and Haruhiko Kuroda have been trying to do for the past several years. Not surprisingly,...

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FX Daily, May 18: Greenback Recovers as Rate Support is Enhanced

2016-05-18

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2016-05-18

Apart from GBP, the US dollar is rising against all the major currencies today.  The Australian dollar is retracing a sufficient part of its recent gains to suggest that the current phase of the US dollar’s recovery is not over. Given that the Aussie topped out a week before the other major currencies, it is reasonable …

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FX Daily, May 17: The Meaning of Sterling and Aussie’s Advance Today

2016-05-17

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2016-05-17

The US dollar is mostly weaker today.  It appears to be consolidating the gains scored since the reversal on May 3. Sterling and the Australian dollar are leading the way early in Europe.   The Australian dollar’s gains appear more intuitively clear.  The minutes from the recent RBA meeting indicated that it was a closer decision.  This …

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Kuroda-San in the Mouth of Madness

2016-05-14

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2016-05-14

  Deluded Central Planners Zerohedge recently reported on an interview given by Lithuanian ECB council member Vitas Vasiliauskas, which demonstrates how utterly deluded the central planners in the so-called “capitalist” economies of the West have bec...

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The Twilight Of The Gods (aka Central Bankers)

2016-05-10

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2016-05-10

The current financial market volatility increasingly reflects loss of faith in policy makers. Celebrity central bankers are learning that they must constantly produce new miracles for their followers.

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St. Louis Fed Slams Draghi, Kuroda – “Negative Rates Are Taxes In Sheep’s Clothing”

2016-05-09

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2016-05-09

"At the end of the day, negative interest rates are taxes in sheep’s clothing. Few economists would ever claim that raising taxes on households will stimulate spending. So why would they think negative interest rates will?" Those are the shocking wor...

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Negative Rates: Jim Bianco Warns “The Risk Of An ‘Accident’ Is Very High”

2016-04-29

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2016-04-29

In an interesting interview with Finanz und Wirtschaft, Bianco Research president Jim Bianco discusses a variety of topics such as negative interest rates turning the entire credit process upside down, bank balance sheets being even more complex and ...

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Podcast Discussing Dollar, Fed, BOJ on Futures Radio Show

2016-04-28

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2016-04-28

I had the privilege of being interviewed by Anthony Crudele, who is trader at the CME, for the Futures Radio Show.   There was much to discuss.  The FOMC met yesterday.  The market, judging from the Fed funds futures see little chance of a Ju...

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Central Banks Roil Markets

2016-04-28

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2016-04-28

The Bank of Japan defied expectations and its economic assessment to  leave policy unchanged.  The inaction spurred a 3% rally in the yen and an even larger slump in stocks.  The financial sector took its the hardest and dropped almost 6%.  The...

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What is the BOJ Going to Do?

2016-04-27

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2016-04-27

Under Kuroda's leadership the BOJ has surprised the market a number of times, most recently with the move to negative rates at the end of January.   It is not that such a move, which has been tried by several European central banks, was without...

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Futures Ignore Apple Plunge; Oil Rises Above $45 As Yellen Looms

2016-04-27

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2016-04-27

For those who thought that the world's biggest company losing over $40 billion in market cap in an instant on disappointing Apple earnings, would have been sufficient to put a dent in US equity futures, we have some disappointing news: with just over...

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The Week Ahead: FOMC, BOJ and More

2016-04-24

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2016-04-24

The last week of April is eventful. The Reserve Bank of New Zealand, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan hold policy meetings.  The UK, eurozone, and the US provide the first estimates of Q1 GDP. Japan, the eurozone, and Australia report consumer prices, while the US updates the Fed’s preferred (targeted) inflation measure, the …

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A Take On How Negative Interest Rates Hurt Banks That You Will Not See Anywhere Else

2016-04-14

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2016-04-14

The Bank of Japan and the ECB are assisting me in teaching the world's savers, banking clients and corporations about the benefits of blockchain-based finance for the masses. How? Today, the Wall Street Journal published "Negative Rates: How One Swis...

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History of Bank of Japan Interventions

We show the history of Japanese FX interventions. The Japanese only intervened when the USD/JPY was under 80. Therefore the 2016 FX intervention threads at 108 are ridiculous. As opposed to the Swiss National Bank, the Japanese only talk, they do not fight.

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Big Players (Read: Governments) Make Markets Unsafe

2016-04-07

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2016-04-07

Authored by Steve H. Hanke of the Johns Hopkins University. Follow him on Twitter @Steve_Hanke. Reportage in The Wall Street Journal on April 4th states that “A fund owned by China’s foreign-exchange regulator has been taking stakes in some of the co...

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FX Daily 03/14: Five Central Banks Meet as Monetary Policy is Downgraded

2016-03-13

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2016-03-13

Fixed exchange rates limit the degrees of freedom for policymakers.  The breakdown of Bretton Woods in 1971 removed this constraint on official action, and the results were larger budget deficit and higher inflation.  The zero bound on interest rates also posed a constraint on behavior. Until this year, despite the long struggle against deflation, the Bank …

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