Tokyo stocks plunge more than 5%

Oh...! No appeal for calm from Abe cabinet? The benchmark index has lost around 4100 points or 22% year-to-date.

Told ya so! No there's trillions more debt for Kuroda and Abe's experiment. They'll blame it on China and companies, though.

Can't blame this one on China. China's been on holiday all this week.

Can't blame this one on China. China's been on holiday all this week.

Exactly. So, now they are blaming FRB Chief Janet Yellen (!)

Five day change is down more than eleven percent. YTD change is down over TWENTY percent. This is about a TWO YEAR LOW.

http://money.cnn.com/data/world_markets/nikkei225/

This ain't a one day thing. Also, I don't think you can say this is Japan "catching up" with the rest of the world. This is Japan "leading the way" only not in the way they'd hoped.

Time for Kuroda to take advantage of strong Yen, and do aggressive FX interventions. Benefits: 1. Build up foreign reserves 2. Stabilize the panic in stock market.

Up the buying limit of ETF aggressively.

Well managed Japanese firm's stocks are attractive. Time to buy at 15,000 level for medium and longer-term investors. Panic has reached an extreme. Markets have oversold.

Low oil prices will result in stronger consumption of the public in due time. Low commodities prices are actually good for resource poor countries like Japan and China.

The benchmark index has lost around 4100 points or 22% year-to-date.

Not a good start. But one JT forecaster has decent upside on the cards for Japanese stocks this year, so if one believes that it will be 22% gains and then some.

I don't see this myself though, unless the yen crashes.

18 arrows, here we come.

What's interesting to note is the immediate effects of Abenomic's terrible and cynical decision to force 0.0% interest rates negative, and (right on cue) how the action is actually having the opposite effect from the one they intended it to have.

Abe's central banker thought that by charging large banks for storing their wealth in a "safe haven" they'd be forced to start lending funds out to the market again (since they'd make money doing this and the profit from new loans would offset the charge imposed on them by the central bank.)

But with the markets and economy entering a very uncertain situation now, (and especially now that China, Japan's largest export/import market and source of cheap plant, is definitely slowing down) most banks have decided that it's SAFER to merely swallow the new negative interest charge...and keep their money safely stashed for the time being!

Meanwhile, Abenomic's monetary fiddlings appear to have run their course in their efficacy, and just at the wrong time. Even with rates at under zero, the yen is shooting up in value...making exports (Japan's sole bright spot) more expensive overseas. And with a large majority of Cheerleader-In-Chief Abe's target audience (ie the Japanese public) now definitely ignoring his claims of "recovery" and "a return to a beautiful Japan just right around the corner...any day now...any year now, then...." it will be interesting to see how his next year in office plays out.

Of course, with Abe facing no real political opposition, I expect that the Japanese will, as usual, continue keeping their money under their proverbial futons while shrugging it all off with a fatalistic, "Sho ga nai, ne."

Always happens around Feb-Mar...April..LOL

This time when Kuroda prints money gold is rising, when people see that the yen is behaving like a third world currency, and gaining value in gold they will get the picture

well, time to short then....

well, time to short then....

Too late - time to short was last week.

Just keep on printing money .... paper is patient! worked well for "helicopter Ben Bernanke"

Inflated stock prices were about the last remaining thing Abe could point to as a tangible benefit of Abenomics (even if it was one which only benefitted a few people). Now even that is gone. And there is no real plan on where to go from here.

Stock markets are ups and downs every where all time,what this has to do with Abe Shinzo?!China stock market still bleeding,States lost sharply,Is Abe Shinzo responsible for them as well?!Japan economy is apart of world economy,sure will be affected by whats going around.We remember 3 years ago all news breaking were glorifying Abe Shinzo reformation and miraculous achievements,what happened now?!What changed over night?!All these big funds moved from China and Japan to States,because it was mobile money,mere speculations,got huge profit,and now its time to say good bye,

@rainy,

could be defense sales, and olympics but with the yen at 112, tourism might take a dive

Lets hope they can find a way to get the companies to release their savings, with a lower tax rate. Things can be done to deregulate. If you think there is nothing that can be done, just go try and start a business. See all the crap in the way. That is what can be done, remove the crap.

As I predicted, already some media outlets are blaming this on China. You should see the Gendai Business report, saying, "Those calling this the end of Abenomics or blaming the bank of Japan for newly instituted polices suffer from the same media illness in reporting the "comfort women problem". You can't blame Abenomics or the recent negative interest move by the bank of Japan and jump to criticize. Instead, it's all China's fault!"

Almost exactly like that.

Im not an economist, but for me its not the macro problems, but the micro. The micro being fear. Fear of them foriengers, fear of each other, fear of the gov, fear of taking risk, fear of making mistakes, fear to spend, just raw fear. Where it comes from is for you to figure out, but I think its one of the main issues.

The sudden surge is an engineered shot across the bow warning shot to Abe and Japan to stop vacillating and get with the program. Japan is now paying the price for stonewalling on the third arrow; that vague promise Abe never had any real intention of keeping. The BOJ's unilateral minus interest rate currency meddling only antagonised the cliques that run the show and the country is now paying the price. If they do as it they're threatening to do, call the bluff and increase the minus deposit rate for bond holdings to an unprecedented -2%, stand by for the mother of all chastisements that'll send the yen under 100.

Too late - time to short was last week.

Or maybe not.