We know the Fed Ended QE earlier this week. But almost on cue, Japan’s jumped into the fray, running its printing machine for yet another extension of their Quantitative Easing program.
Having printed money up the wazoo and not seeing any inflation that they richly deserve after 20 years (or so they believe), the Bank of Japan today voted to increase their quantitative easing program by 80 trillion yen ($724 billion) from the current level of 70 trillion yen. The Nikkei stock index was up nearly 5% after the announcement.
The USDJPY trade went all the way to 111 (remember, it was as low as 78 post the last crisis). The weaker yen spurs Japanese Exports.
Japan’s running at 1% inflation, after considering the sales tax increase recently (up from 5% to 8%). They plan to further increase the sales tax next year. We don’t exactly know why.
What does this QE mean?
The Bank of Japan prints money to buy Government bonds and also, Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) based on equities. It will increase the amount of ETFs being bought from 1 trillion yen to 3 trillion yen. The ETFs contain shares of the big automakers (Toyota, Honda, Mitsubishi) and big global brands like Canon. (Not Sony, it seems, as it stopped paying dividends)
This is strange because central banks are not supposed to hold risky assets. But that rule has gone out the window with the US, EU and Japanese central banks buying and holding anything that even looks like toilet paper.
It’s going to mean that money will flow to Indian markets, surely. Since it’s cheap to borrow in Japan and convert to the rupee, which has a high rate of interest, the weakening yen is likely to be a good reason to continue the carry trade – after all, if you convert and earn nothing, a weakening yen means your conversion rate (from the USD) will still give you more yen!
What India should be doing is just buying Japanese equities; that seems to be a one way bet right now. However, the situation in Japan is reason to worry – after all this QE, there is simply no action! Even a fraction of this in India and we would have seen inflation through the roof. What we have, we don’t want – and that’s exactly what other countries desire.
Subscribe to Capital Mind:
To subscribe to new posts by email, once a day, delivered to your Inbox:
[wysija_form id=”1″]
Also, do check out Capital Mind Premium, where we provide high
quality analysis on macro, fixed income and stocks. Also see our
portfolio which has given stellar returns in our year, trade by trade
as we progress. Take a 30-day trial:
[wysija_form id=”2″]
