Japan Hikes National Sales Tax Despite Recession Fears

Japan has increased its national sales tax to 10% from 8% on Tuesday, a significant policy change that could tilt the world's third-largest economy into recession by depressing consumer sentiment, reported Market Watch.

The last two times policymakers increased the sales tax, 2-point rise to 5% in 1997 and another to 8% in 2014, an economic contraction shortly followed.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe twice delayed the tax hike in recent years.

Abe has indicated the tax is now unavoidable given the demographic challenges in the aging country. He said the tax would help pay down the enormous national debt, and position the country towards more financial responsibility in balancing the budget by 2025. But taxing the consumer as the economy is deteriorating could be a recipe for economic disaster in 2020.

Japan's GDP expanded at an annual pace of 1.8% over the summer. The economy is quickly slowing into fall, thanks to the trade war between the US and China. Global trade volumes are plummeting through 2H19, has taken a toll on Japan's exports. The tax will likely sideline the consumer in 2020, force them into a savings pattern that could tilt the economy into a recession next year, similar to the tax increase in 2014.

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"It’s Almost Impossible To Buy": Japanese Bond Crash, Margin Call Send Shockwaves Around The Globe

For a dramatic preview of what will happen in a flash to all those record low interest rates without the backstop of central banks and ravenous pension fund, look no further than what happened in Japan overnight, where bond futures suffered the biggest one-day crash since August 2, 2016, sliding as much as 0.97 yen to 154.05, and triggering margin calls for investors after the worst 10-year debt auction in three years.

More ominously, once the rout started it quickly spread outside of Japan, because as yields jumped, the sell-off spilled into US Treasuries and European debt.

There were three things behind the swift collapse: the first catalyst was the Bank of Japan’s Monday decision to slash bond purchases in October for the four major maturity buckets in order to steepen the curve and avoid further flattening which Kuroda has repeatedly expressed concern about in the past; the BOJ had indicated it may even stop buying debt of more than 25 years. It also sought to anchor yields from the one-to-three year zone by raising purchases in a regular operation earlier in the day and lifting the purchase band for the sector in October.

"The BOJ is showing its clear intention to correct distortions in the curve through flexible adjustments in market operations,” said Mari Iwashita, chief market economist at Daiwa. "While cutting the lower end of purchases in bonds maturing over 25 years to zero looks shocking, the BOJ will probably cut buying in this zone slowly."

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China Manufacturing PMI Stuck In Contraction As Services Hit 2019 Lows

Despite record credit injections and endless easing, China's economic survey data goes from bad to worse.

While China Manufacturing PMI managed a de minimus gain from 49.4 to 49.7, it remains in contractionary territory for the 7th month in the last 9.

China Services PMI continued to slide, back to its lowest since 2018.

Confirming global weakness seen in Japanese and European PMIs.

In a seemingly desperate reach, Bloomberg notes that the stronger result (49.4 to 49.7) signaled some optimism is emerging in the Chinese economy in spite of lingering uncertainty over trade talks and domestic demand.

PMI data improves as “the government’s tax cuts have helped improve growth slightly,” Yao Shaohua, economist at ABCI Securities Co. in Hong Kong.

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Japan Is About To Sell Its First Ever Junk Bond... With A 1% Coupon

While corporate bond yields have been plumbing ever lower lows in the yield-starved "New Normal", prompting even the world's largest bond fund Pimco to warn that this is the riskiest credit market ever, Japan is about to deliver the proverbial "hold my beer" moment to the entire world. 

Aiful, the consumer lender which almost went bankrupt a decade ago, is preparing to sell Japan’s first ever yen-denominated "high yield" - and in this case we use the term very, very loosely - in the public markets, showing how desperate for yield local investors are, and how much risk they are willing to take in exchange for virtually no return, as negative interest rates have now become the new normal.

What is most remarkable about the bond sale in the country where the 10Y yield has been trading mostly in negative territory for over half a decade, is that the 18 month yen junk bond is set to price on Friday with a coupon of, wait for it, 1%.

Another unique aspect of the upcoming issuance is that it is taking place in the first place. As Bloomberg notes, the junk bond offering will be historic for Japan's bond market, where companies haven’t felt compelled to sell below investment grade notes as they’ve traditionally had close ties with banks, who tend to be more forgiving than bondholders in tough times.

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Is 2019 About To Repeat 2018? 3 Similarities, 3 Differences... And JPM's Ominous Conclusion

For several months at the start of 2019, analysts, pundits and the media argued that the year was shaping up as a mirror image of 2016, and specifically a repeat of the Shanghai Accord in January 2016 which resulted in a global credit explosion emanating from China and meant to arrest the global bear market. To be sure, in January of 2019 we saw a similar "gargantuan" credit tsunami out of China after the injection of an unprecedented 4.64 trillion yuan in January.

However, several months later, it appears that China's determination to reflate at all costs fizzled, Europe failed to piggy back on China's spike in the credit impulse, and suddenly comparisons to 2016 were quietly scrubbed. This is how Horseman Global's Russell Clark explained the shift in sentiment:

Markets turned around in 2016 when it became obvious that the Chinese policy of cutting capacity and pushing up commodity prices was the real deal. This was Chinese policy to create inflation internally to the benefit of corporates and the financial sector. However, it seems these polices have been reversed, and share prices of Chinese steel companies and banks are beginning to reflect these problems again. If the US dollar stays strong, and China cannot create inflation internally, then they are going to be forced to devalue. Many of the long positions of the fund began to reflect this at the end of April, including mining stocks and currencies.

As a result, Clark writes that "the likelihood of sustained inflation is beginning to disappear" and "deflation again looks more likely, just as it did from 2011 to 2016."

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The $80 Trillion World Economy In One Chart

The latest estimate from the World Bank puts global GDP at roughly $80 trillion in nominal terms for 2017.

As Visual Capitalist's Jeff Desjardins notes, today’s chart from HowMuch.net uses this data to show all major economies in a visualization called a Voronoi diagram – let’s dive into the stats to learn more.

In nominal terms, the U.S. still has the largest GDP at $19.4 trillion, making up 24.4% of the world economy.

While China’s economy is far behind in nominal terms at $12.2 trillion, you may recall that the Chinese economy has been the world’s largest when adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP) since 2016.

The next two largest economies are Japan ($4.9 trillion) and Germany ($4.6 trillion) – and when added to the U.S. and China, the top four economies combined account for over 50% of the world economy.

MOVERS AND SHAKERS

Over recent years, the list of top economies hasn’t changed much – and in a similar visualization we posted 18 months ago, the four aforementioned top economies all fell in the exact same order.

However, look outside of these incumbents, and you’ll see that the major forces shaping the future of the global economy are in full swing, especially when it comes to emerging markets.

Here are some of the most important movements:

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Five Trillion Dollars! Doomed US Pensions' Shortfall Now The Size Of Japan's Economy

Scores of public pensions across the United States are so massively underfunded that the shortfall is roughly equal to Japan's GDP - the world's third-largest economy, according to Moody's Investors Service.

State and local pension plans in the U.S. now have less than three- quarters of the money they need to meet their promised payouts, their lowest level since at least 2001, according to Public Plans Database figures weighted by plan size. In dollar terms the hole for state and local pensions is now $5 trillion, according to Moody’s Investors Service. -WSJ

If governments don't increase taxes, convince pensioners to take less than they were promised or divert funds from elsewhere, an increasing number of funds face insolvency, reports the Wall Street Journal. 

In Kentucky, for example, a major pension for state employees had around 16% of what it needs to fulfill its obligations based on 2017 fiscal year figures, according to the Public Plans database which tracks state and local pension funds. A Chicago municipal employee fund had less than 30% of what it needed during the same fiscal year, while New Jersey's state pension is so underfunded it faces insolvency in 12 years according to a Pew Charitable Trusts Study.

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BOJ Offers To Buy Unlimited Bonds After Bizarre Delay As Yield Surge

While traders' attentions were as usual focused on the latest developments in China last night, around 9pm ET we pointed out that the real action was taking place in Japan, where the 10Y yield had blown out beyond the BOJ's designated range of 0.00%-0.10%...

... and had even crossed into the range above 0.11% where the BOJ traditionally launches its Fixed Rate Operation, also known as Unlimited Buying of JGBs beyond a given rate, something it did most recently on Monday morning (after a 7 month hiatus) when JGB yields also blew out sharply.

Which is why we were wondering when the BOJ would announce the latest "unlimited buying" operation to defend Japanese bonds from a further rout.

And it wasn't just us: so were all bond traders and central bank watchers, and yet the hours passed and still nothing from Kuroda.

Then, finally, just around 1am ET or 4 hours after the rout had started, the BOJ couldn't take it any more and announced the long overdue fixed-rate operation for the second time in 5 days after the 10-year yield rose to its highest level in more than a year.

While the BOJ's latest intervention resulted in a lot of relieved traders as the lack of any intervention almost convinced markets that Kuroda was willing to let the long end JGBs "slide", there was a difference: this BOJ offered to buy 10-year debt at 0.10% vs 0.11% at its previous operations. And also unlike Monday's operation, today the central bank actually did end up buying some 94BN yen worth of 10-year bonds.

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BoJ Leaves Policy Stance Unchanged, Optimistic On Global Economy

Having briefly injected some anxiety into markets over reported comments last week about paring back easing in 2019 (which were swiftly denied), Kuroda is likely to err on the dovish side in his comments after BoJ left all monetary policy levers unchanged.

Consensus expectations are that the BOJ to leave all its key policy settings unchanged:

• likely to keep the short-term rate at -0.1% and target for the 10-year JGB yield at around 0%
• also likely to maintain the current pace of purchases of exchange-traded funds and real estate investment trusts
• The BOJ is likely to retain its guideline on the annual pace of JGB accumulation at 80 trillion yen
• Post-meeting comments by Kuroda are likely to be calibrated to avoid stoking upward pressure on the yen. That means he’s likely to avoid specifics if asked again about how or when the BOJ could manage an exit from extreme stimulus.

And that is what we got. All policy levers unchanged.

There was one dissenter - same as before - this guy not only wanted more NIRP, but also more QE, clearly unaware that the BOJ already owns more than half of all Japanese govt bonds.

• BOJ Board Member Kataoka Votes Against Keeping Rates Unchanged
• BOJ Kataoka: Should Take Additional Easing if Delay in Hitting Inflation Target
• BOJ Kataoka: BOJ Should Lower Yields on JGBs of 10-Years and Longer

Language surrounding the global economy is more optimistic.

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Japanese Bond Market Volume Collapses To Record Low

The Japanese bond market remains paralyzed with trading volumes hitting record lows as private bondholders no longer dare to even breathe without instructions from the central bank.

Gross purchases of JGBs by investors dropped 22% to 12.6t yen ($115.1b) in July, the least since May 2016, according to the latest data from Japan Securities Dealers Association Monday. On a rolling 12-month average basis, the volume was at an all-time low.

The Bank of Japan’s unprecedented asset purchase program has released a creeping paralysis that is freezing government bond trading, constricting the yen to the tightest range on record and braking stock-market activity. 

“All the markets have been quiet,” said Daisuke Uno, the Tokyo-based chief strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. “We’ve already seen the BOJ dominance of JGBs since last year, but recently participants in currency and stock markets are also decreasing as those assets have traded in narrow ranges.” 

“The flows on both the buying side and selling side continue to fall,” said Takehito Yoshino, the chief fund manager at Mizuho Trust & Banking Co., a unit of Japan’s third-biggest financial group by market value. “Falling volatility is a very serious problem for traders and dealers who are unable to get capital gains.”

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Panicked BOJ Unleashes Bond Buying Bazooka: Offers To Buy Unlimited 10Y JGBs At 0.11%

During this morning's bond rout when a poor French auction sparked a high-volume selloff in German Bunds which also hit Japanese JGBs before slamming US TSYs, Goldman said that "with 10Y JGBs closing at 0.095 and getting hit at 10bp intraday, focus will be on how the BOJ will react tomorrow [i.e. now]. Opinions seem pretty split with some expecting an increase in purchase size in the 5-10 bucket, while others feel that the BOJ will let the 10Y run loose given the current sell off is more fundamental than event driven. With BOJ behind buying pace for 80tn reference anyway, personally I feel it doesn't hurt the BOJ to remind market of their presence."

Goldman was right: the BOJ, panicking after the overnight bond rout, not only reminded markets of its presence, but did so in dramatic fashion when it first boosted the amount of JGBs bought in the 5-10 year bucket from JPY 450BN to JPY 500 BN, and then for good measure unleashed the QQEWYC bazooka, announcing it would purchase an unlimited amount of 10Y JGBs at 0.11%, just a fraction above the BOJ's 0.10% line in the sand, only the second time it has done so in 2017 since February.

In immediate reaction, the benchmark Japanese TSY, which was trading north of 0.105% and flirting with 0.11%, promptly slid back to 0.095% now that it has become clear that all the hawkish posturing by central banks was just that.

Japanese market were relieved with the Topix paring losses to 0.3%, or 1,611.52 as of 10:23am in Tokyo, down from a drop as big as 0.7%, same as the Nikkei, which had dropped 0.7% earlier, then trimming losses by more than half, while the Yen, after trading at 113.250, immediately weakened by 25 pips to 113.50.

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"It Was A Deer In Headlights Moment": Japan Dumps Most US Treasuries Since May 2013

With the December monthly TIC data due out this week, bond traders will be closely watching if the selling of US Treasuries by foreign accounts, and especially central banks, which as we have repeatedly shown for the past several months has hit record levels...

... will persist, with a focus on whether China's near record selling of US paper will persist.

However, this time the surprise may not be China, but its nemesis across the East China Sea, Japan.

As UBS notes, Japanese investor appetite for developed market overseas bonds, and especially US, was a big story during the first seven months of 2016. However, since then interest has waned. Weekly flow data underscores how Japanese investors sold ~¥4 trillion of overseas bonds from the time of the US presidential election to the end of Jan-17. Last week the Japanese government released more granular data for the month of December which highlights a number of notable developments.

Most importantly, while December saw the largest overall net selling flow of overseas bonds since Jun-15, this was entirely due to offloading of US Treasuries – other developed bond markets on aggregate actually saw modest net purchases. Indeed, while Japanese investors bought German and Australian paper, US Treasuries were sold to the tune of ~¥2.4 trillion (~$21bn) in December, the largest net selling flow since May-13.

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Japanese Bond Yields Surge, Yen Spikes As Kuroda Disappoints Market: "The Market Will Test The BOJ"

One week ago, yields on the Japanese 10Y JGB tumbled when the BOJ relented, and succumbed to market demands to expand its debt monetization, when it increased the size of its daily bond purchase operation, or POMO in NY Fed parlance, in the 5-10 year zone from JPY410BN to JPY450BN, which sent yields tumbling as market participants assumed the BOJ would chase every uptick in yields with progressively greater bond purchases. The day before, on January 25, the BOJ upset market expectations as it held off on the purchase of JGBs with maturities of more 1-3 three years and 3-5 years. Two days later, however, it increased the purchase of JGBs with maturities in the 5-10 year zone by 40 billion yen from the previously known amount, to 450 billion yen.

The unexpected moves aroused speculation as to whether the BOJ is preparing to taper its quantitative easing program. With market participants split in their views on the BOJ's stance on monetary easing, yields on JGBs fluctuated wildly.

Fast forward to Friday, when on the previous day the 10Y JGB blew out to 0.10%, the highest yield since the JGB unviled NIRP one year ago, and prompted a fresh round of speculation whether the BOJ would again increase the amount of debt it purchased.  It did not, and as a result Japan’s 10-year yield surged as traders judged the central bank’s expanded bond purchases Friday to be insufficient to cap borrowing costs as global rates continued rising and steepening around the globe.

The 10Y yield rose as much as 4 bps to 0.15%, the highest since January of 2016, while the yield on the 20-year bond also climbed three basis points to 0.720%.

What is surprising is that the BOJ did increase purchases for bonds due in 5-to-10 years to 450 billion yen ($4 billion), from 410 billion yen planned for the first operation this month. However, since 450 billion is what the BOJ did last week when 10Y yields were lower, the market was clearly hoping for even more.  Furthermore, instead of purchasing bonds in the longer duration 10Y+ bucket, the central bank instead picked shorter maturities at 1Y, hinting there may be a scarcity in long-dated supply, arguably the stuff of Kuroda's nightmares.

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Contagion Concerns Slam Japanese Financials As Toshiba Crashes 50% In 3 Days

After two days of total carnage in Toshiba stocks, bonds, and credit risk, the bloodbath continues with the once-massive Japanese company is collapsing once again in early trading - now down 50% in 3 days. Following the semiconductor and nuclear business catastrophes, the company had nothing to add regarding today's crash but more worryingly the massive loss of market cap is spreading contagiously to Japanese financials with Sumi down 4%, and MUFG down almost 3%.

As we noted yesterday, Tsunukawa said that “I apologize to shareholders, business partners and all stakeholders for the trouble we have caused,” after Toshiba said cost overruns at U.S. nuclear reactors it is building were likely to force a write-down of as much as several billion dollars, clouding its turnaround plan after the 2015 accounting scandal. Specifically, the company said it may have to book several billion dollars in charges related to a U.S. nuclear power plant construction company acquisition, rekindling "concerns about its accounting acumen."

The problem is that the nuclear business, together with the semiconductors, has been positioned as one of key pillars underpinning Toshiba's growth which has been trying to shift away from its consumer electronics core. Alas, the latest gaffe now means that much of Toshiba's growth is gone, and the stock price reflect that overnight, when Toshiba's stock plunged by 20%, the most permitted, before it was halted for trading.

The derisking is weighing heavily on USDJPY..

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"Something Big" Indeed Came - Bernanke's Japan Visit Unveils "Helicopter Money", Sparks Monster Rally

When we first heard this past Thursday that private blogger and Citadel employee Ben Bernanke was going to "secretly" meet with both the BOJ's Haruhiko Kuroda and Japan PM Abe, we warned readers that "something big was coming."

As noted late last week, "Bernanke will be in Japan next week. It has been arranged for him to meet officials including Abe and Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda, according to a government official speaking on condition of anonymity. Bernanke is expected to discuss Brexit and the BOJ's negative interest rate policy with Abe and Kuroda, the official said." Reuters also added that "some market players speculate Kuroda might decide, in a surprise, to provide "helicopter money."

We concluded as follows:

So is it time? Is Bernanke about to unleash the next, and final, monetary policy evolutionary step, one which launches "helicopter money" in Japan, and if successful, brings it across the Pacific to the US?

We don't know, but if anyone is still holding on to USDJPY shorts, now may be a good time to quietly close them out, because if Reuters is right, and a "helicopter money" is about to be served for the first time in modern history, things are about to get very volatile, very fast.

Two trading days later, Japan's stocks have soared by 4% - the biggest one day gains since February - and the USDJPY is more than 200 pips higher...

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Japan Is First To Panic; Won’t Be The Last

The most widely-reported result of the recent G-7 meeting was Japan’s attempt to convince the other major economies to admit that a crisis is imminent and take appropriately radical steps. The response seems to have been a bunch of blank stares. As India’s Business Standard noted:

G7 pact offers minimal cover for Abenomics reset

A Group of Seven compromise offers minimal cover for Shinzo Abe. The Japanese prime minister’s plan to revitalize the world’s third-largest economy needs fresh impetus. Abe didn’t get as much international backing as he might have liked from hosting the rich nations’ club. But, the summit communique can, just about, be spun his way.

Abe’s counterparts, understandably, do not share his view that the world risks another Lehman Brothers-style financial crisis. That is important because Abe has inexplicably committed to raising the country’s sales tax next April, a surefire way to choke off recovery – unless a shock of this scale emerges.

So Japan — which, remember, has already borrowed eye-popping amounts of money, increased its central bank balance sheet by more as a percent of GDP than have either the Fed or ECB, and pushed interest rates on most of its government bonds into negative territory, all to no avail — has decided to act on its (manifestly justified) sense of panic by starting a new round of deficit spending:

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Former IMF Chief Economist Admits Japan's "Endgame" Scenario Is Now In Play

Back in October 2014, just after the BOJ drastically expanded its QE operation, we warned that the biggest risk facing the BOJ (and the ECB, and the Fed, and all other central banks actively soaking up securities from the open market) was a lack of monetizable supply. We cited Takuji Okubo, chief economist at Japan Macro Advisors in Tokyo, who said that at the scale of its current debt monetization, the BOJ could end up owning half of the JGB market by as early as in 2018. He added that "The BOJ is basically declaring that Japan will need to fix its long-term problems by 2018, or risk becoming a failed nation."

Which is why 17 months ago we predicted that, contrary to expectations of even more QE from Kuroda, we said "the BOJ will not boost QE, and if anything will have no choice but to start tapering it down - just like the Fed did when its interventions created the current illiquidity in the US govt market - especially since liquidity in the Japanese government market is now non-existent and getting worse by the day."

As part of our conclusion, we said we do not "expect the media to grasp the profound implications of this analysis not only for the BOJ but for all other central banks: we expect this to be summer of 2016's business."

Since then, the forecast has panned out largely as expected: both the ECB and BOJ, finding themselves collateral constrained, were forced to expand into other, even more unconventional methods of easing, whether it be NIRP in the case of the BOJ, or the outright purchases of corporate bonds as the ECB did a month ago.

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The ECB’s Monetary Policy Is Now Creating a Rush Into Derivatives

One of the most catastrophic things central banks have done in the post financial crisis period is destroy financial markets. Investors are no longer investors, they’re merely helpless rats running around the lunatic central planning maze desperately attempting to survive by front running the latest round of central bank purchases.

While actual macroeconomic and corporate fundamentals do still exert influence on financial asset prices from time to time, the far bigger driver of performance over the past several years is central bank policy. To understand just how destructive this is, recall what we learned in last month’s post, Japan’s Bond Market is One Gigantic Joke – “No One Judges Corporate Credit Risks Seriously Anymore”:

TOKYO — Fixed-income investors in Japan are increasingly assessing bonds based on their likelihood of being bought by the central bank, rather than the creditworthiness of the issuers.

Still, the fund manager desperately wanted to get hold of the bond because he bets that debt issued by Mitsui and other trading houses will be picked up by the Bank of Japan in its bond purchase program.Even if an investor buys a bond with a subzero yield, the investor could sell it to the central bank for a higher price, the thinking goes.

“It goes to show that no one judges corporate credit risks seriously anymore,” said Katsuyuki Tokushima at the NLI Research Institute.

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Global Markets Stunned By Biggest Japan Crash Since 2013; All Eyes On Deutsche Bank

With China offline for the rest of the week, global markets have found a new Asian bogeyman in the face of Japan which as reported last night saw its markets crash, and the Yen soar, showing that less than 2 weeks after the BOJ unveiled NIRP, yet another central bank has lost control.

The Nikkei crashed 5.4%, the biggest drop since June 2013, dropping over 900 points to August 24 lows driven by crashing banks, while the Yen soared to 114.50 overnight before the BOJ desperately tried to push the Yen lower, with London dealers reported the BoJ checking rates and levels to prompt short covering through 115.

But while the BOJ failed to push up equities, it certain managed to launch a panic buying spree in JGBs, which as also reported finally slid into negative yield territory, thus boosting the global number of bonds with a negative yield to just shy 30% of total or roughly $7 trillion!

Aside from Japan, everyone is looking at the bank which we first asked if it was "the next Lehman" last June, namely Germany's Deutsche Bank, to see if yesterday'd desperate scramble to publicly confirm it has sufficient liquidity will sufficient will stop the price from dropping and its CDS drom blowing out. For now, the stock is indeed up modestly, even if the CDS has refused to tighten suggesting that whatever management did, it is not enough and it is only a matter of time before the selling returns.

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