A year ago, we noted that The Bank of Japan (BoJ) was a Top 10 holder in 90% of Japanese stocks. In December, we showed that BoJ was the biggest buyer of Japanese stocks in 2016. And now, as The FT reports, the real "whale" of the Japanese markets is stepping up its buying (up over 70% YoY) entering the market on down days more than half the time in the last four years.
While much was made of this week's drop in US crude production, it was driven by an Alaskan supply drop, not the Lower 48 whose production is at Aug 2015 highs. WTI back above $50 on the back of more OPEC jawboning appears to have everyone convinced this time is different, but for the 18th week in a row US oil rig counts rose (by 8 to 720).
The last time OPEC (and Non-OPEC) member nations sat down to attempt a coordinated increase in oil prices by cutting production they succeeded... for about three months. Every since then, oil has been on a gradual declining path, boosted by a surge in US shale output and declining global demand, with WTI recently even sliding sliding below OPEC's implicit price floor of $50/barrel. Which is why on May 25, after the failure of the first 6 month production cut, the same nations will try the same exercise, this time looking to cut output for 9 months, and hoping for a different outcome.
It took the market about 6 months to realize that contrary to initial expectations, Trump's fiscal reform would be substantially delayed and implemented in 2018 at the earliest, if at all. Next, it's time to take the machete to the total size of the program, which is what Goldman's chief political economist Alec Phillips did today when he reported that Goldman is lowering the firm's expectations for fiscal policy changes over the next year: "Rather than the $1.75 trillion/10 years tax cut we had previously assumed, we now assume a cut of $1 trillion" or a cut of over 40%.
Back in 2014, just as the market was plunging, St Louis Fed's Bullard stopped the bleeding when in a Bloomberg interview said that a "logical response" to the tumbling market, would be to "delay the end of QE" and strongly suggested ed that "QE4" would be considered to prevent further market losses. The S&P exploded.