Japan; Hamada’s at it again, says sales tax hike should be delayed for a year

Professor emeritus of economics at Yale University and special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Koichi Hamada said again on Tuesday that the planned hike in Japan’s sales tax should not go ahead as planned, as instead should be postponed:

• Says the tax increase could weaken the positive effects of the policies so far

• “Raising the sales tax would have various strong impacts, which could hamper (the effects of) Abenomics in boosting the economy and beating deflation,”

The current plan is that the 5% sales tax would be hiked to 8% in April 2014 and to 10% in October 2015

I posted this just a few minutes ago, related.

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After the big falls overnight, there is a lot of chatter in the market now of big stop loss sellers clustered at 96.80 in USD/JPY. I’ll be back with a fuller orderboard as behinds hit seats in Tokyo.