Asia today - the norm in Japan, China prepares for CNY & the Aussie $ falls

So Japan is back after a holiday...and look what is happening, a weak yen below 120 again against the US dollar...

...and a strong equity market (Nikkei in this case): 

The similarity of the above two charts is very striking (of course the former is geared).  A really interesting link on Japan today was this one which noted hopes for a recovery based on: 

Japanese bonds are the worst-performing government securities in the past month except for Greek debt, and benchmark 10-year yields have doubled from their January lows.

We will see about this...I note the continued weak producer price data and continued failure to fiscally consolidate ("Japanese Cabinet: Unlikely To Achieve Primary Balance Surplus By FY2020"). 

Whilst in China there were some notable headlines on further state owned organisation reform (link here) and pre Chinese New Year monetary manipulations ("PBoC injects $CNY 160bln via 14-day & 28-day reverse repos"), Australia is probably the second most interesting source of stories in the region today as the Aussie dollar continued to move weaker...

(nice chart above via @johnnyshap who noted 'at 76.50 the AUD is now trading around the long term average of US 76.41c since it floated in Dec 1983)

...as unemployment rose (according to Bloomberg TV to the highest since 2002).  Ex specific mining names exhibiting self-help (BHP Billiton) I remain short Australian assets on the basis that at an economy-wide level there are still issues.