Yep, a large repatriation of funds will take place.
Insurance losses will be massive, especially to reinsurers and life insurers.
To the extent that reserves are in Treasuries, they will be sold. Interest rates will be affected upwards, USD should be hit to some extent. We might well see the revival of a yen carry trade as it probably gets printed. If you think there was QE in Japan in the past, you have seen nothing yet, I should think.
Back in the day, AIG had a huge Asian operation but I don't know how extensive it might be now, post-crash.
Mr. Google tells me that AIG, or its insurance remains, dodged a bullet.
dealbook.nytimes.com
The big reinsurers are Swiss Re and Munich Re. Since Buffett is a shareholder, he got hit too. I don't know if his proprietary re-insurance operations (Central National) got hit.
businessinsider.com
The sad part of this is that nuclear power will be seen as unsafe. Of course, uranium and nuke infra companies get slaughtered. This disaster should prompt efforts to plan not for the 100 year disaster but the 1000 year disaster.
I don't think nuke power will be affected in the long run, so there may be some opportunities there.
I've seen enough media now to see that Katrina was a walk in the park compared to the earthquake.
The only good thing about this is that we won't see too much disorder as the Japanese as you say are neat and tidy. If this had happened here, the first job would be to prevent looting, etc. |
