Stocks in Japan are up, but will the economy follow?
It’s supposed to be a time of thanks, not regrets. But if you had bought all the stocks listed in Japan’s Nikkei Index last Thanksgiving, the return by this morning would have been 71 percent.
Today the key index in Tokyo went up another 1.8 percent to get very close to a six year high. Some of this was optimism projected from New York where the S&P 500 hit a record high of 1808 yesterday.
The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes says all the easy money as a result of quantitative easing in the country has been pushing down the value of the yen.
“A weaker yen means bigger profits for Japanese companies, cheaper products for Japanese exports, and so that has boosted confidence the Japanese economy is going to continue improving and that profits are going to increase again next year as they have this year.”
The BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes spoke with Marketplace Morning Report host David Brancaccio. Click on the audio above to hear the full interview.
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