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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (4750)	1/11/2004 9:39:28 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 110194

BOJ Spends Up to $10 Billion to Little Effect, Analysts Say Jan. 11 (Bloomberg) -- The yen is going to continue to rise against the dollar even after the Bank of Japan spent up to $10 billion selling its currency Friday during Asian and New York trading, some analysts said. Japan's currency rose 0.2 percent last week against the dollar while the central bank sold yen on at least four days, according to traders who deal with the BOJ and asked not to be identified. The Ministry of Finance sold 5 trillion yen ($47 billion) in U.S. Treasuries to the BOJ to boost its currency sales, the Yomiuri newspaper said yesterday. Sales Friday were ``rumored to have been as much as $10 billion,'' Hans Guenter Redeker, head of currency strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London, wrote in a report. The yen fell by 2 percent to 108.30 per dollar after BOJ selling in Asia. The currency later rose to 106.80 in late New York time, according to EBS prices. ``It continues to feel as if there's only one dollar buyer in the market and that's the BOJ,'' said Robert Rennie, currency strategist in Sydney at Westpac Banking Corp. ``Had it not been for the intensive intervention in the last several months, a dollar-yen level of 100 would be more than feasible.'' hurting the country's exporters. The currency has risen 12 percent in the past year against the dollar, last week trading as high as 105.90 per dollar, the strongest since September 2000. `Must Be Exhausted' The Ministry of Finance in December agreed to temporarily sell as much as 10 trillion yen of U.S. Treasuries to the central bank to increase the funds available to stem the yen's advance. The ministry sold half that to the BOJ on Friday, the Yomiuri reported, without saying where it obtained the information. Under the agreement, the sales are to continue through the end of the fiscal year on March 31, with the ministry required to buy the debt back later. ``The current market condition is very tough for the ministry,'' Toru Umemoto, currency strategist in Tokyo at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a report. ``They must be exhausted.'' Umemoto said Friday's sales during Asian trading ``could have been 3 to 5 billion dollars.'' quote.bloomberg.com

To: Haim R. Branisteanu who wrote (4750)	1/11/2004 9:43:02 AM
From: mishedlo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

The No-Bang, All-Whimper Recovery Economists had forecast an increase of 150,000 jobs in December. They were off by a mere 149,000. Other aspects of the employment figures disappointed, too. More than 300,000 people dropped out of the job pool and the index of hours worked fell below the level of 1998. The manufacturing sector shed jobs, as it had for the previous 40 months, but so did the retail and financial service industries. Finally, November's upbeat job report was revised downward. One economist who was unsurprised by the figures is Stephen S. Roach, chief economist at Morgan Stanley. Arguing for months that a lasting recovery cannot be built on an increasingly indebted consumer, a declining savings rate and widening current-account and trade deficits, Mr. Roach's has been a voice in the wilderness. ----------- We had a spectacular second half of '03 in G.D.P. because of tax cuts, the last-gasp spending of the refinance cycle and price cuts on motor vehicles, Mr. Roach said. But we haven't had job growth and income generation. Consumers can't continue to carry the ball with their incomes lagging. nytimes.com