Quiet day of announcements sees Japan front and centre

December 12, 2016

To celebrate Japan being in focus for today, we have included the man responsible for implementing monetary policy – Bank of Japan’s Governor Kuroda. One of his main policies is to control the bond yield curve, pushing bond yields into negative territory in order to encourage investors to put their money into equities. So, without further ado, we introduce Bond, Negative-Yielding Bond, agent -0.183. He prefers his economies shaken, not stirred.

As far as announcements go, it is a relatively quiet day.

Japan are releasing Core Machinery Orders, Tertiary Industry activity and Prelim Machine Tool Orders. These figures all indicate potential strength and weaknesses within the Industrial sector within the Japanese economy.

Also being released today is the Rightmove HPI (House Price Index) and CB (Conference Board) Leading Index from the UK. Meanwhile, the US is releasing its Federal Budget Balance in the early hours of tomorrow morning.