It may be option expiration day (always leading to abnormal market activity) but it remains all about the weak dollar, which after crashing in the two days after the Fed's surprisingly dovish statement has put both the ECB and the BOJ in the very awkward position that shortly after both banks have drastically eased, the Euro and the Yen are now trading stronger relative to the dollar versus prior.
Was that it for the great February/March bear market rally?
Survivors of the 2011 Japanese tsunami continue to report sightings of what they have dubbed ‘tsunami ghosts’ five years after the devastating earthquake that killed over 20,000 people in Japan. NPR’s Rachel Martin interviews Richard Lloyd Parry of The Times of London about this phenomena: Npr.org reports: RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: It’s been a little more than three years since the biggest earthquake in Japan’s history, a quake that caused an unforgettable tsunami that killed some 20,000 people. But the earthquake also had quieter consequences that didn’t make headlines.
The Aussies did it with their employment data (and then admitted it), and now we see Japan's Economic and Social reserch Institute post the most ridiculous macro print ever. Over 4 standard deviations from expectations and almost double the highest expectations, Japan Machinery Orders spiked 15.0% MoM - the biggest since Jan 2003.
Up 15% MoM versus expectations for a 1.9% rise... the biggest beat since Feb 2009 (oddly coincidental given everything that is going on)
Five years after the Fukushima disaster, things are getting worse.
As we reported last week, "the fuel rods melted through their containment vessels in the reactors, and no one knows exactly where they are now. Tepco has been developing robots, which can swim under water and negotiate obstacles in damaged tunnels and piping to search for the melted fuel rods. But as soon as they get close to the reactors, the radiation destroys their wiring and renders them useless, causing long delays, Masuda said."