Okay, WTF is going on with them. If you don't know, their rates are .5% Guess what, they can't cut to 0%. Yes, they want to raise them and are holding back for months now. What do you guys think of their scenario? I REALLY want a full blown Asian Contagion. What are the odds of that to happen again?
rates have been at zero in japan for more than 10 years. In the past, you were effectively charged by the japanese govt for having too large of a savings account (inflation). Japanese just aren't credit hoarders like the west. Most don't even have credit cards. Cash for everything.
Okay, thanks. Haven't they been pressing to raise rates last few months and keeps getting turned down?
If you want to know what the japanese fed will do, watch the us and then wait 6 months. They are an extremely slow moving monetary policy government. I think the japanese yen will appreciate in the near term but it will have less to do with the JGB than with the US situation. The yen is extremely sensitive to commodity prices as they import a vast majority of their resources. ...and then export them with little microchips built in to rise Rise RISE sometime in the future...