Almost exactly ten years ago, on September 12, 2007 Japan's current prime minister Shinzo Abe resigned less than a year into a tenure dogged by scandals, the suicide of a minister, a raft of resignations and corruption allegations, and a humiliating election drubbing for his Liberal Democratic Party. Never one to shrink away from resposibility, Abe blamed it on crippling diarrhea:
Following the latest set of global economic news, most notably a mediocre set of Chinese Official and Caixin PMIs, coupled with a mix of lackluster European manufacturing reports and an abysmal Japanese PMI, European, Asian stocks and U.S. stock index futures have continued yesterday's losses. Oil slips for 4th day, heading for the longest run of declines since April, as OPEC ministers gather in Vienna ahead of a meeting on Thursday to discuss production policy.
It has not been a good "second coming" for Shinzo Abe, whose first stint as prime minister of Japan ended in disgrace in 2007 after an allegedly crippling bout of explosive diarrhea forced the then-prime minister to resign. To say that Abenomics has been a dismal failure would be an understatement: unable to boost inflation, unable to boost wages, plummeting trade with both exports and imports crashing to post crisis lows...
With the US closed for Memorial Day and UK markets offline due to a bank holiday, overnight volumes have been weaker than normal on little newsflow. The main story remains the stronger USD following Yellen's hawkish Friday speech, which not only led to the lowest Yuan fixing since February 2011...
... but pushed the USDJPY almost as high as 111.50 overnight before paring gains, however it was enough to send the Nikkei 1.4% higher.
Over the past several months, a recurring topic about Japan's economy has been whether Abe would delay Japan's planned consumption tax due in April 2017.