Asian Markets Mixed | Japan Tsunami | U.S. Fed Decision | Tariff Deadline | News9

And let’s go straight into the earthquake and the tsunami which has jolted parts of northeastern Russia as well as the northern part of Japan, the city of Hokkaido. Well, first up, let’s bring you the headwinds, the tsunami of headwinds that the Japanese economy has already been facing ever since the last 2 years or so. First up, the Japanese economy is struggling amid high inflation and global slowdown. The real GDP in Japan has fallen to an analyzed 0.2% between the fourth quarter of 2024 and the first quarter of 2025. There’s been weakness registered in the public sector as well as net exports have been low for Japan. Imports meanwhile have rebounded at the start of this year 2025 and that low export high import has lowered the trade balance not in favor of Japan. Meanwhile, inflation continues to be sticky and the 15% US tariff on Japanese exports is likely to further threaten the prospects of Japan’s economy to pick up. Right now, Japan’s GDP is valued at $4.18 trillion and India is slated to overtake Japan to become the fifth largest economy by end of this year. For investors looking at Japanese stocks, the NIK 225 has been trading pretty much at the same levels that it was trading in March of 2024. Practically no gains and massive dips seen through the year and a quarter. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Shiguru Ishiba is facing resignation calls, but he says that he will stay put in office. Well, we also have a few inputs coming in from Hokkaido in Japan, which has been hit by the tsunami. And Hokkaido in the northern part of Japan is home to Toyota Motor. It’s also home to the Isuzu engine manufacturing plant and of course the new semiconductor plant by Rapidus, which is coming up in Chos. We have Kranti Batini here to put the Japanese economy and the Japanese stocks in perspective for us. Good morning Kranti. Well, if you look at the heat map of the Nikay 225 this morning, it seems pretty much unaffected by all the news around the tsunami barring just one stock which is Toyota Motors which is down about 0.7% or so in trade. Well, we understand that Japan has its infrastructure and has its disaster relief management completely in place, but a tsunami not really rocking the boat when it comes to investors this morning. Uh good morning Karthik. Yes. uh in Japan the frequent um earthquakes are quite common but the kind of magnitude of uh above uh 8% is uh uh is we can one we can say this is kind of a uh one kind of one of the highest ferocity but they have a very strong infrastructure with respect to the Japanese market and uh markets are concerned uh the nikai has been uh in a consolidation phase and the stock this morning uh nikai index is uh kind of giving a indication kind of a flattish kind of a situation. We need to wait and watch some more kind of a time as the day progresses. Uh is there any uh kind of a infrastructure damage or uh it’s going to have any impact on the supply chains and logistic services of the companies. We need to wait and watch. By and large after the recent trade deal uh with uh uh USC is concerned with the different twist and turns uh first first of all Japan is the first country in the Asia-Pacific pack which could able to finalize a deal with the US and the Japanese uh bank of J Central Bank of Japan has been mulling uh right now whether to go for a rate hike or maintain a status quo because inflation is still causing one kind of worry at this point of time but all the equity markets in the Asia-Pacific region emerging region uh uh region they have been watching the actions of Bank of India but as a as a point to ponder upon uh Karthik many of these uh Asia uh centric funds they have until unless uh uh these are the very large cap funds uh their exposure to Japan is uh nominal uh as a investment avenue. Majority of the uh Asia investments have been deployed uh within uh within the markets like uh uh China, India and other emerging markets in the uh Asia pack is concerned and they always comes up with a disclaimer uh we are investing Asia pack excluding Japan. Okay, that’s what the investment temple. But uh last uh 5 years if you see the Japanese market after a downtrend, okay, the Nikai uh went up to the level of 44,000 uh Nikai. Now it’s in a consolidation phase at this point of time. It is Japan by and large more about a large institutional kind of a fabric. Uh nobody investing in Japan. uh they expect a multi-bagger kind of return like investing in India and China or South Korea or somewhere uh it is by and large a stable kind of a market which offers a strong liquidity for the institutional investors. All right Krantini we leave it at that. Thank you so much for joining us this morning on this very important story that we have been tracking. Always a pleasure having you here on News9.

Asian markets traded mixed on Wednesday, buoyed by cautious sentiment and uncertain tariff timelines. Wall Street’s negative tone the prior evening and looming U.S. tariff deadline of August 1 weighed on investor confidence. Meanwhile, anticipation is mounting ahead of the U.S. Federal Reserve policy announcement later today. News9’s Kartik Malhotra delves into global market trends with Kranthi Bathini from Wealthmills Securities.

………………………………………………………………………………….
News9 is India’s first fully integrated English news brand across all digital platforms. It includes a publishing platform, viz. www.news9live.com, a future-ready OTT platform, News9 Plus, and a 24-Hour video streaming service on connected TVs and all social platforms.

Watch News9 Live – The English news brand that understands and fits perfectly into the digital-first lifestyles of our English news audiences.

► News9 Plus Website : https://www.news9plus.com/all
► News9 Plus App : https://news9plus.app.link/aPwz3P2psMb
► News9 OTT Coupons : https://bit.ly/4dwLDx4
► Watch us on YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NEWS9LIVE
► Like us on Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/news9live
► Follow us on Instagram : https://www.instagram.com/news9live
► Follow us on Twitter : https://twitter.com/NEWS9TWEETS

#englishnews #tv9digital #tv9d #news #livestream & #news9livestreaming

Comments are closed.