Nikkei

While the G-20 and the G-7 haggle among each other, all (with perhaps the exception of France) desperate to make it seem that Japan's recent currency manipulation is not really manipulation, and that the plunge in the Yen was an indirect, "unexpected" consequence of BOJ monetary policy (when in reality as Richard Koo explained it is merely a ploy to avoid the spotlight falling on each and every other G-7/20 member, all of which are engaged in the same type of currency wars which eventually will all morph into trade wars), Europe's energy powerhouse Norway quietly entered into the war. From Bloomberg: "Norges Bank is ready to cut interest rates further to counter krone gains that interfere with the inflation target, Governor Oeystein Olsen said. “If it gets too strong over time, leading to inflation that’s too low, we will act,” Olsen said yesterday in an interview at his office in Oslo.

The quiet overnight session was started by comments from Buba's Weidmann, whose statement, among others, that the ECB will not cut interest rates just to weaken the EUR together with the assertion that the EUR is not seriously overvalued, sent the EURUSD briefly higher in pre-European open trading. Of secondary importance was his "hope" that the ECB will not have to buy bonds (it will once the market gets tired of Draghi open-ended verbal intervention), something he himself admitted when he said the ECB "may be forced to show its hand on OMT." The stronger EUR did not last long, and in a peculiar reversal from prior weeks when the European open led to a spike in the cross, saw the EURUSD dip to three week lows, touching on 1.3310, before modestly rebounding. This validity of the drop was confirmed two hours later when in the first key economic datapoint, it was revealed the Euroearea exports fell 1.8% in December, the most in five months. As SocGen said "the monthly trade data rounded off what has undoubtedly been a pretty dismal quarter for the euro area. Overall euro area exports fell by 1.8% m/m in December although this was offset by a even bigger 3% decline in imports - which itself reflects the weakness of domestic demand in some euro area countries. Maybe of more interest is the latest data on the destination of euro exports. These continue to show a pronounced weakness in global demand (albeit for November). This indicates that weakness in Q4 is not solely a domestic affair but also reflects a wider slowdown in the global economy."

If anyone is confused why the BOJ refused to do anything of note until January 1, 2013 at which point it would proceed with open-ended monetization a la the Fed and the ECB's OMT, the reason is simple: it allows the country's (transitory) leaders to jawbone, threaten, cajole and coax, in what will be daily attempts to talk the currency lower without actually implementing any monetary action: just like the ECB has done so far. Case in point: the now daily speeches by Japan's economic and fiscal policy minister Akira Amari, who every single day of the past week has been talking to reporters, on many case openly contradicting himself, and whose only purpose is to spook any remaining Yen longs into submission. Sure enough here comes today's sermon:

• AMARI: ABE CAREFULLY CONSIDERING BOJ GOVERNOR CANDIDATES
• AMARI: ABILITY OF BOJ CANDIDATES MORE IMPORTANT THAN BACKGROUND

But funniest of all:

• AMARI: GOVERNMENT HAS NO TARGET FOR STOCK MARKET

Wait, back up, what? It was just four days ago that Amari himself made it very clear that he would not sleep until the Nikkei hit 13,000 by the end of March.

It started overnight in Japan, where Q4 GDP posted a surprising and disappointing 3rd quarter of declines, then quickly spread to France, whose Q4 GDP declined -0.3% Q/Q missing expectations of a -0.2% drop, down from a +0.1% increase, then Germany, whose GDP also missed expectations of a -0.5% drop, declining from a +0.2% increase to a -0.6% drop, then on to Italy (-0.9% vs Exp. -0.6%, last -0.2%), Portugal (-1.8%, Exp. -1.0%, last -0.9%), Greece (down -6.0%, previously -6.7%), Hungary (-0.9%, Exp. -0.3%), Austria (-0.2%, down from 0.1%), Cyprus (-3.1%, last -2.0%), and so on. To summarize: Eurozone GDP dropped far more than expected, or posting a -0.6% decline in Q4, worse than the -0.4% expected, which was the largest drop since Q1 2009, and down from the -0.1% posted in Q3. And since this was a second consecutive negative quarter of GDP decline for the Eurozone, the technical recession (double dip? triple dip? is anyone even counting anymore?) in Europe too is now official.

Following yesterday's G-7 announcement which sent the USDJPY soaring, and its embarrassing "misinterpretation" clarification which undid the entire spike, by an anonymous source in the US who said the statement was in fact meant to state that the Yen was dropping too fast and was to discourage "currency wars", it was only a matter of time before another G-7 country stepped into the fray to provide a mis-misinterpretation of the original G-7 announcement. That someone was the BoE's outgoing head Mervyn King who at 5:30 am eastern delivered his inflation reporting which he said that "it’s very important to allow exchange rates to move," adding that "when countries take measures to use monetary stimulus to support growth in their economy, then there will be exchange rate consequences, and they should be allowed to flow through." Finally, King added that the BOE will look through CPI and relentless UK inflation to support the recovery, implicitly even if it means incurring more inflation.

With the world so obviously gripped in currency war even the hotdog guy has moved away from saying how technically undervalued AAPL stock is to opining on who is leading the global race to debase, it was only a matter of time before the G-7 confirmed the only strategy left is FX devaluation by denying it. Sure enough, a preliminary statement from the G-7 came earlier, in which the leading "developed" nations said, well, absolutely nothing:

We, the G7 Ministers and Governors, reaffirm our longstanding commitment to market determined exchange rates and to consult closely in regard to actions in foreign exchange markets. We reaffirm that our fiscal and monetary policies have been and will remain oriented towards meeting our respective domestic objectives using domestic instruments, and that we will not target exchange rates. We are agreed that excessive volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates can have adverse implications for economic and financial stability. We will continue to consult closely on exchange markets and cooperate as appropriate.

This follows a statement by the US Treasury's Lael Branaird yesterday in which she said that she is supportive of the effort in Japan to end deflation and “reinvigorate growth”. Lastly, the SNB's Jordan also confirmed that the Swiss National Bank will continue to do everything to crush its own currency, and will the 1.20 EURCHF floor, stating that Japan is merely doing the right thing to stimulate growth (i.e., doing what "we" are doing).  In other words, let the FX wars continue and may the biggest balance sheet win, all the while everyone pretends nothing is happening.

This morning, in an understated way (of course) ahead of the G-20 group-hug at the end the week, Economic and fiscal policy minister Akira Amari stated "It will be important to show our mettle and see the Nikkei reach the 13,000 mark by the end of the fiscal year (March 31)." This level for the Nikkei implies a USDJPY level of 104.75 (or a further 12% devaluations for here). However, there is a strong correlation between the USD-JPY exchange rate and the S&P 500-to-Nikkei 225 relationship. Based on that 104.75 target (and the toungue-in-cheek belief that this will help Japan's competitiveness - which means someone else has to suffer), the ratio of the SPX to NKY would be 8.7x. So while the Nikkei would see a 17% surge (in nominal value), the S&P 500 would lose 3-4% from here. 

JPY could fall a lot further because weak JPY has been the most effective tool to create equity market wealth and spur Japanese demand. Moreover, Citi's Steven Englander notes, Japanese policymakers do not have many other options. If JPY is ticket for the Nikkei to regains ground lost versus other equity markets, USDJPY would have to go into three digits. By implication JPY would have to weaken a lot more. The loss of market share in part reflects long-term structural issues but Japanese governments (like others) are more mindful of incurring the anger of domestic political constituencies by making tough structural reforms than of G20 counterparts by weakening the exchange rate. From a political perspective, the Nikkei-JPY relationship is too much a good thing for Japanese policymakers to give up - but divergences are abundant at the short- and long-end of the JGB curve - and too much of a good thing in this case is a disaster.

• Pope steps down, citing frailty (Reuters)
• Japan’s economic minister wants Nikkei to surge 17% to 13,000 by March (Japan Times)
• Venezuelan devaluation sparks panic (FT)
• Rajoy releases tax returns, but fails to clear up doubts over Aznar years (El Pais)
• Companies Fret Over Uncertain Outlook (WSJ)
• Home Depot Dumps BlackBerry for iPhone (ATD)
• Kuroda favors Abe's inflation target, mum about BOJ role (Kyodo)
• A Cliff Congress May Go Over (WSJ)
• U.S., Europe Seek to Cool Currency Jitters (WSJ)
• Radical rescue proposed for Cyprus (FT)
• Franc Is Still Overvalued, SNB’s Zurbruegg Tells Aargauer (BBG)
• Northeast Crawls Back to Life After Crippling Blizzard (WSJ)

In what has been a quiet start to week dominated by the G-20 meeting whose only purpose is to put Japan and its upstart currency destruction in its place, many are expecting a formal G-7 statement on currencies and what is and isn't allowed in currency warfare according to the "New Normal" non-Geneva convention. Because while there may not have been much overnight news, both the EURUSD and USDJPY just waited for Europe to open, to surge right out of the gates, and while the former has been somewhat subdued in the aftermath of the ECB's surprising entry into currency wars last week, it was the latter that was helped by statements from Haruhiko Kuroda (not to be confused with a Yankee's pitcher) who many believe will be the next head of the BOJ, who said that additional BOJ easing can be justified for 2013. He didn't add if that would happen only if he is elected. Expect much more volatility in various FX pairs as the topic of global thermonuclear currency war dominates the airwaves in the coming days.

The markets generate noise and a signal.  Reasonable people can and do differ on which is which.  This brief note address the signals for the yen and euro.  Secondarily it looks at sterling and the Australian dollar. 

It was a busy session for Chinese "data" (more on the laughable validity of Chinese economic releases shortly), after China released January export and import data, which rose 25% and 28.8% from a year ago respectively. Futures were delighted by the data, until someone pointed out that January 2013 had some five more working days than 2012 due to the calendar shift of the Chinese new year, and that adjusted for this effect exports were a far more modest 12.5% while imports rose only 3.4%. Credit growth in January also rose to a record, with aggregate financing of 2.54 trillion, including new local-currency loans of 1.07 trillion, exceeding forecasts, as China dumped gobs of money into the economy, while somehow quite mystrriously inflation came right on top of the expected 2.0%. The Yen soared overnight following comments from Taro Aso who said that the Yen had depreciated too fast. Heading to Europe, the biggest news so far was the latest ECB LTRO repayment which saw some 21 banks repay €4.992 billion, less than the estimated €7.0 billion. Finally, trading today will be slower than usual as Nemo is finally found in the shape of some 12 inches of snow blanketing the Northeast.

In a surprise announcement, BoJ Governor Shirakawa announced that he will step down on 3/19 (a month ahead of schedule) and while Barclays notes that there had been talk at one point that Mr Shirakawa might step down in a bid to protect the BoJ’s independence in response to Mr Abe’s threats to revise the BoJ Act; the decision, however, appears to have been motivated by policy considerations (the desire to have the governor and deputies start together). At a time when Japan’s stockmarkets are celebrating JPY weakness, Mr Shirakawa’s move provided yet more bounce as the new BoJ leader is expected to be even more dovish. Abe's push for a new governor, however, is meeting resistance from his own cabinet and financial bureaucrats, who fear extreme measures from the central bank may trigger a damaging rise in bond yields. The tussle, which Reuters notes, is testing Abe's resolve, but lies between a slightly less dovish bureaucrat in Toshiro Muto (favored by the opposition) and a banker, Haruhiko Kuroda, who is a front-runner in Abe's camp. With Draghi's comments today, we suspect Abe will err on the side of uber-dovish to fight the currency wars alongside him.

It has been another quiet overnight session, with macro data decidedly mixed and "adjusted", because while the key German December Industrial Production number came in sequentially at 0.3% on expectations of a 0.2% rise, it fell more than expected on an unadjusted Y/Y basis, dropping 1.1%, on expectations of just a 0.5% drop. On the other hand, Spain's industrial output not unexpectedly stagnated for a 16th consecutive month, plunging by 6.9% in December in line with expectations, and sliding by a whopping 8.5% Y/Y. In bond auction news, Spain sold some €4.61 billion in 2015, 2018 and 2029 bonds, all pricing with yields substantially higher than recent January auctions, which in turn sent the Spanish 10 Year to 2 month highs of 5.52% after the auction, however it has since regained most of the losses.

While Japan's recent attempt to massively reflate and break out of its "liquidity trap" - an artificial construct to explain what happens when an artificial model, created by a flawed and artificial economic theory explodes in a singularity of Econ PhD idiocy leaving billions of impoverished people in its wake, is nothing new, there are those who are rather skeptical this latest attempt to achieve what Japan has not been able to do in over 30 years will work. And while one can come up with complicated, expansive, verbose theories based on Keynesian DSGE models and other such gibberish, why this time will be different for Japan, there is a very quick and simple argument why it won't.