Asia today - update on Japan and China plus an unfortunate newsreader in India

After a couple of busy days the return of Asia today...but little has changed.  Take a look at the Japanese yen against the US dollar...in the 109s now (or to put it another way back to the levels last seen in 2008):

A return to the 120 decade 'high' seems to me inevitable.  I remain short the yen.  

And more is needed.  As this report on Reuters notes:

'The (Japanese) government on Friday cut its view on private consumption, which accounts for about 60 percent of the economy, saying that consumer spending is seen pausing although a pick-up trend remains intact'

Remember what Mr Kuroda of the Bank of Japan said at the Jackson Hole summit a month or so ago?  As I noted here he said that:

"We at the Bank of Japan do not think it necessary to change our economic forecasts for coming years...if there is anything which could derail our course toward 2% inflation target we would not hesitate to change or adjust (but for now) we will continue our current monetary policy”

This thinking needs to change...more stimulus needed.  Of course this does not mean Japanese equities are not of interest.  On the contrary as shown below the scope for a shift to a 10 year high is a distinct possibility.  Of course what that means is that stock picking is going to matter...

Otherwise the debate about Chinese growth continues. I noted in yesterday's Wrap (link here) that the signal from the Chinese property market remained negative.  Stimulus and support at the margin is clearly going to be a sub-theme over the rest of the year (along with continuing microeconomic reform).  This chart from today's Financial Times was indicative of the former.

Similar to Japan I kind of feel that the Chinese markets also remain in a stock specific orientation.  Macro concerns combined with some strong performance over recent months has evolved the cheap orientation of these markets of earlier this year.  The Hang Seng remains nicely indicative of this: note the rollover/resistance at the 25,000 level on this 5 year chart: 

Finally...this was unfortunate in India:

'AN embarrassing faux pas has proved costly for a Doordarshan newsreader. This casual newsreader mistook ‘Xi’ in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s name to be the Roman letter for 11 and read the name as Eleven Jinping. The newsreader has been removed. The mistake happened during a late night bulletin which is generally read by casual newsreaders since the regulars do not prefer to work at that time'