Japan

Authored by Nick Schmitz via Verdad Capital

We’ve done a National Geographic–style deep dive into the world of the Japan bears, reading the scare stories about demographic decline, old people dying alone, underrepresentation of minorities on corporate boards, and other anecdotal “evidence” of stagnant economic prospects. We tried to find the best examples of Japan bearishness: the scariest pieces of evidence we could find, stuff that portrays the world’s third largest economy as a zombie death trap for equity investors.

E-mini futures are modestly in the green this morning, though net of fair value the S&P index is poised for another record high open as the FOMC begins its last meeting for 2017 in which it is expected to raise rates by 25bps. European stocks gain while Asian equities slide led by weakness in Chinese airplane stocks.

The latest round of military drills involving the US, Japan and South Korea began their latest set of tracking drills on Monday, DW reported, citing sources in the South Korean military.

The drills – which are meant for "practicing tracking an object and sharing information on it among the three countries” - were being held in waters off the coast of Japan, according to Japan's Defense Minister Itsunori Onodera.

Earlier this week, Hawaii reportedly tested its system of nuclear sirens for the first time since the 1960s as the state’s governor warned that he was taking North Korea’s threats of nuclear annihilation extremely seriously. Today, the Telegraph is reporting that the paranoia has spread to Japan, where millions of Tokyo residents will participate in evacuation drills meant to simulate their response to North Korean nuclear strike.

Via GEFIRA,

The world’s third largest economy has an aging and shrinking population and will simply disappear. The low fertility is not unique to Japan. The same problem besets Taiwan, China and Korea as well as the United States and Europe. In the West the establishment has opted for population replacement.