Morning Brief – Japan TOPIX soars

The market mood remained mixed following comments out of the participants in US debt ceiling negotiations, however, there is still no resolution in sight based on the remarks.

US President Biden is currently heading off to the G7 summit in Japan that begins on Friday, so that could slow down the negotiation, but a cancelled meeting to hurry back to finish talks may be taken as positive.

President Biden had intended visits to Papua New Guinea and Australia following this but cancelled these plans to head back to Washington for more debt talks.

Japanese news and market moves were key in the Asian session Preliminary GDP data for Japan in the January. March quarter was released and came in well above expectations at +0.4% quarter on quarter.

This was versus the +0.1%, which was the median consensus. This is a solid expectation beat and it’s still not overly quick growth, but it’s the first positive growth for Japan in 3 quarters.

Japan’s TOPIX hit its highest since August 1990, further highlighting the positive reaction. Also the Tokyo Price Index, also known as TOPIX, is up over 6% Year-to-date..

The TOPIX is a broad index, with around 2,000 constituents. Foreign investors are back. Foreign investors bought a net 2.1 trillion-yen worth of Japanese stocks in April.

Japan’s corporate sector remains the largest net buyer of Japanese stocks, with a volume of 1.1 trillion year-to date, showing the strong interest for Japan.

On the Bank of Japan, Société Générale Bank expects the Bank to widen its yield curve control band to 100 basis points above and below its target for 10-year Japanese Government Bonds.

The leading French Bank also note that it would “be bullish for the yen, but not automatically bearish for share prices as the yen remains in deep undervalued territory.”