“There’s been quite a lot of strength in the yen, economic uncertainty and a bounce in oil prices, so its not surprising that [Japan] is barely growing”. That followed a run of poor numbers this month, keeping alive hopes the government will unleash more stimulus this year to meet ambitious economic growth targets.
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“As long as Japan is growing between zero and one percent, that’s a fabulous result”.
Japan’s Nikkei share index slipped on Monday as the data soured investor sentiment.
“This reflects an unwind of the unusually strong outturns recorded in H2’15. we also look for a 0.1 percentage point dip in the participation rate to 64.8 percent, which could allow the unemployment rate to remain steady at 5.8 percent”, the RBC analysts said.
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index rose 0.1 percent to 139.98 as of 9:05 a.m.in Tokyo.
High on the USA calendar this week are inflation figures for July and minutes of the last Federal Reserve meeting which might offer more clues on the chance of a rate hike by year end.
A man walks past electric quotation boards displaying share prices on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (L) and the foreign exchange rate between the yen and the United States dollar (R) in Tokyo on August 12, 2016. New Zealand’s S&P/NZX 50 Index declined 0.2 percent. The dollar index was effectively unchanged at 95.767 after going to as low as 95.254 on Friday, its lowest since August 3.
Some commodity-linked currencies retreated, with the New Zealand dollar, Norwegian krone, Canada’s Loonie and the Malaysian ringgit all down at least 0.2 per cent despite crude’s advance. Annual GDP came in at 0.8% slightly above the expected 0.7% rise, and against a prior reading of a 0.9% rise reported in May.
Brent crude futures (LCOc1) rose $1.45 to $48.42 a barrel, its highest since July 12, while USA crude (CLc1) rose to $45.81.
West Texas Intermediate crude climbed 0.5 per cent to US$44.70 (RM 180.36) a barrel, after rising 6.4 per cent last week, its best performance since April. The euro was nudging higher at $1.1171 EUR= having held in a $1.1050 to $1.1230 range for the last couple of weeks.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 37.05 or 0.20% to 18,576.47, while the S&P Composite index lost 1.74 or 0.08% to 2,184.05, both bouncing off session-lows at the close of trading.
It was up 0.4 percent at $1,341 an ounce on Monday and is now up 25 percent since the start of the year.
The yen weakened Monday against the greenback and the euro, making Japanese exports a tiny bit cheaper on overseas markets.
As of 10:37 BST the dollar/yen cross was 0.38% lower at 100.91.
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Data indicated that Japan’s economy stalled in the April-June quarter, causing it to miss market forecasts and rekindling worries about the government’s faltering bid to stoke a recovery.
