David Fuller's view The Nikki 225 (weekly & daily) has fallen 8.5% recently which may be enough for a while, even in what has been an overall corrective phase for global stock markets. One of the reasons why NKY fell this far, in my opinion, is that at its April 10th meeting BoJ Governor Shirakawa appeared to have backtracked on his earlier commitment to a policy of easing. Under pressure from Japan's upper house of the Diet, he said earlier today that, "the BoJ will pursue powerful easing", as reported by Bloomberg Businessweek. Shirakawa has a justified reputation for resisting monetary stimulus, but lawmakers now appear to have the upper hand, evidenced by their rejection of Ryutaro Kono's nomination to the BoJ board on grounds that he is "insufficiently committed to easing."


Looking for a bounce in line with a short-term oversold condition, I bought June NKY futures this afternoon, paying 9612.5, including spread-bet dealing costs.


Chart of the day - Vietnam (weekly & daily) was a major underperformer from October 2009 until this year, mainly due to its devaluation policy for the dong (shown inversely as USD/VND), which actually commenced in 2008, and the resulting runaway inflation. The situation appears to have stabilised and Vietnam's best rally since the 2009 low shows that it is recovering. A close back beneath the MA would be required to question this hypothesis.