Highest inflation in Tokyo in over three decades makes things tough for BOJ

 While Tokyo’s inflation is finally approaching the 2% level targeted by the BOJ, the April figures are unlikely to prompt the central bank to cut back its monetary easing

The cost of living in Tokyo rose at the fastest pace in almost three decades in April, as the impact of soaring energy prices became clearer, an outcome that complicates the Bank of Japan’s messaging on inflation and the need for continued stimulus. Consumer prices excluding fresh food in the capital climbed 1.9% from a year ago, according to the ministry of internal affairs Friday. Barring the impact of sales tax hikes in 1997 and 2014, that was the fastest pace of gains since December 1992.

Fastest Tokyo inflation in decades complicates BOJ’s messaging The gauge jumped after the drag on the price index from sharp cell phone fee cuts a year ago started to drop out of calculations. Analysts had forecast prices to rise 1.8%. While Tokyo’s inflation, a leading indicator of the national price trend, is finally approaching the 2% level targeted by the BOJ, the April figures are unlikely to prompt the central bank to cut back its monetary easing.The central bank demonstrated its stance last week when it doubled down on its efforts to keep borrowing costs at rock bottom levels….

Japanese women bear brunt of recession as virus unravels Abe’s ‘Womenomics’

The number of such “non-regular” workers posted its biggest drop on record in April, declining by 970,000 to 2.02 million. Women accounted for 710,000 of the decline

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has long made creating jobs for women central to his economic policy, but now women are suffering a bigger share of the pain as the country heads for its worst economic slump since World War Two.

Helped by a worker shortage, female labour participation hit a decade-high of more than 70% under Abe’s campaign, often dubbed “Womenomics”. The catch: many women lack the job security of male workers, with more than half holding vulnerable part-time, contract or temporary jobs. The number of such “non-regular” workers posted its biggest drop on record in April, declining by 970,000 to 2.02 million. Women accounted for 710,000 of the decline.

That makes women workers “the shock absorber” of the world’s third-largest economy, said Mari Miura, a Sophia University political science professor. Only about one in five male workers hold non-regular jobs.

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Temp worker Miyuki was told in April she would lose her job on a farm-equipment assembly line at the end of the next month, so she quit to take another offer. But that job disappeared too as the coronavirus outbreak ravaged the economy…Read More

Here’s why Japan boasts the world’s most powerful force of retail traders

About 85 per cent of traders are men, mostly in their 30s, 40s and 50s, according to estimates from Gaitame

Popular tales of “Mrs Watanabe” — the canny Tokyo housewife who dabbles in currency trading in between school runs and shopping — barely begin to tell the story of Japan’s retail traders in the foreign exchange market.

With almost 800,000 active forex accounts, Japan boasts the world’s most powerful force of retail traders. It has doubled in size in little more than a decade and spurred some of the most dramatic price moves of recent times, including the January “flash crash” that hammered the dollar and sent the yen soaring.

Contrary to the enchanting notion of “Mrs Watanabe,” most of the traders are middle-age men, who’ve been driven into the market by years of ultra-low interest rates. They toil in offices by day and trudge home to moonlight in foreign exchange, hoping to build a family nest egg in a country where banks pay savers next to nothing.

“A lot of individual investors don’t realize that they’re doing something extraordinary,” says Yasushi Takagi, a 44-year-old financial writer who started forex trading in his early 30s to supplement his earnings. “They bet heavily on high-yielding currencies like the Turkish lira, the Mexican peso and the South African rand, while many players outside of Japan wouldn’t touch them.”