Shinzo Abe Archives - ETFBloggen

Market Insight – Foreign Exchange Yen slide to continue

Yen slide to continue

Abe urges coordinated response to slow growth

At last week’s G7 summit, Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, urged world leaders to take part in a coordinated fiscal response to lacklustre global growth, comparing current economic conditions to those during the 2008 financial crisis. While the speech failed to garner much support, it did highlight the willingness of Japanese authorities to do more in order to ensure growth and acted as a precursor to Abe’s decision on Wednesday to delay the proposed 2% sales tax hike by two and a half years to October 2019, a move which sent the USD/JPY falling over 1%. While we expect fiscal stimulus to continue to be an important part of achieving the nation’s economic goals, with core inflation so far from its target (2.3% below), it is highly likely that the Bank of Japan (BoJ) will implement further monetary stimulus in coming months. Further loosening should put pressure on the JPY against the US Dollar, as diverging policy paths come increasingly to the fore.

BoJ unlikely to disappoint for much longer

After the sharp JPY rally that followed the disappointment of the BoJ’s last monetary policy meeting, it is understandable that investors may be cautious about the central bank’s intentions. However, the surprising decision to maintain the status quo masked the grim economic picture that was delivered in the BoJ’s quarterly outlook report that was released simultaneously. The report revealed a deep cut to the 2016 inflation forecast and raised concerns over the impact of slowing emerging market demand on Japanese exports. Recent inflation and manufacturing data has likely added to these concerns, showing the second month of declining core consumer prices and the fastest contraction in manufacturing activity in three years (see Figure 1). Given this backdrop, we see the BoJ as more likely to ease than not at its upcoming meeting on June 15th.

Figure 1: Economy remains weak

Positioning shifts

Despite widening nominal yield differentials between Japan and the US, speculative positioning has remained stubbornly JPY bullish, until now. Last week, speculative long JPY positions experienced the largest fall since November 2011, and shorts showed early signs of bottoming. A catalyst in the form of further monetary easing by the BoJ or hawkish comments during Janet Yellen’s World Affairs Council (WAC) speech (6th June) could spur an increasing shift to bearish positioning.

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Uranpriset stiger när Japan godkänner återöppnandet av kärnkraftverk

Uranpriset stiger när Japan godkänner återöppnandet av kärnkraftverk Aktier med koppling till uranutvinning och även de börshandlade fonderna som replikerar utvecklingen av dessa företag steg under vecka efter det att de japanska myndigheterna lyft det sista hindret för att återöppna det kärnkraftsreaktorer som stängdes ned 2011 efter katastrofen i Fukushima.

Global X Uranium ETF (NYSEArca: URA), som replikerar kursutvecklingen av de företag som utvinner uran har stigit under veckan, och testar nu sitt 200 dagars glidande medelvärde. Detta är en direkt effekt av att uranföretagen stiger, något som i sin tur är hänförligt till att tingsrätten i Kagoshima i onsdags förkastade det juridiska försöken att blockera återöppnandet av kärnkraftverket Sendai. Denna anläggning kommer att vara den första av de japanska kärnkraftverk som öppnas efter den avstängning som följde av den förödande jordbävningen och efterföljande katastrofen i Fukushima. Reaktorerna kan med största sannolikhet påbörja sin verksamhet redan i juni i år.

Som svar på detta utfall har anti-nukleära aktivister aggressivt framställt krav i domstolen i syfte att blockera återöppnandet av dessa kärnkraftverk. Den japanska premiärministern Shinzo Abe, som är en hängiven kärnkraftsförespråkare argumenterar för atomkraften som stod för nästan en tredjedel av Japans elproduktion pre-Fukushima eftersom detta gör det möjligt för Japan att minska sitt beroende av dyra fossila bränslen. Uppgifter från de japanska tullmyndigheterna visar att Japans import av flytande naturgas, så kallad LNG, slog rekord för den tolvmånadersperiod som slutade den 31 mars 2015. Den japanska importen av flytande naturgas kom att uppgå till 7,8 triljoner yen, motsvarande 65 miljarder USD.

Med återstarten av den japanska kärnkraftsindustrin förväntas efterfrågan på uran att stiga. Enligt World Nuclear Association förväntas nästan 40 kärnkraftverk öppnas globalt under de kommande tre åren. I framförallt Asien väntas ytterligare kärnkraftverk öppnas efter detta.

För närvarande är priset på de företag som utvinner uran lågt, och speglar inte den den potentiella ökningen av efterfrågan framöver. Det kommer att bli ytterligare efterfrågan när de japanska kärnreaktorerna börjar producera igen och Kina slutför sina nya anläggningar.