The CrossBorder Capital Blog

Big changes are underway in Asia. Investors may already be seeing this in the recent divergence between the rising Japanese stock market and the sideways-moving Yen. Digging beneath the surface, it seems clear that official BoJ/MoF policy towards the Yen has changed. We have long suggested that a move was imminent, ever since a recent BoJ-led research paper highlighted the changed structure and focus of the Japanese export economy away from supplying final goods to America and Europe, and increasingly towards sending intermediate goods to China. A stable Yen is now important. Put differently, the importance of the Yen/ Yuan cross is fast-rising relative to the Yen/ US dollar cross. It means Japanese liquidity and asset prices become more pro-cyclical. In short, Japan becomes more like another Asian Emerging Market and driven by the Chinese economy.

Our 2017 views have centred on two key themes: a stronger China and a weaker US dollar. We predicted the implications would be a higher Euro and strongly rising Asian stock markets, as regional policy-makers monetized the impact of capital inflows. We were ambivalent towards the Yen. Our hunch that things had changed in Japan may be borne out by subsequent events, which unusually have seen the Yen largely unmoved by a skidding US dollar, but Tokyo stocks upbeat. We argue again here that Bank of Japan policy looks to have made a sea-change towards targeting the Yen and no longer targeting the volume of liquidity at a set level. If correct, it provides further bullish ammunition for Japanese equities, but warns of upcoming problems for fixed income markets.

China's People's Bank (PBoC) continues to ease monetary policy, evidenced by its latest balance sheet expansion. The PBoC is now the World's biggest Central Bank. It deserves more attention not just for this reason, but because, unlike its Western counterparts, it retains an impressive control over its domestic monetary system. A green light from the PBoC is positive for the Chinese economy, positive for commodity prices and positive for EM equities. But a red light should worry all of us!