Global| May 24 2010Japan Sector Index Drops In March
Summary
After an encouraging spurt in January Japan’s overall sector index has fallen back for two straight months and is back barely above its level of December 2009. Only the industry index is up this month. The industrial index is up in 12 [...]
After an encouraging spurt in January Japan’s overall sector index has fallen back for two straight months and is back barely above its level of December 2009. Only the industry index is up this month. The industrial index is up in 12 of the last 13-months but the even the pace of its increase is tailing off. The construction index is still eroding. The tertiary index which is a measure of the performance of the services sector is on a steady slow path of recovery but it fell sharply in March and in February. The tertiary index is below its December 2009 level.
The construction index is near the bottom of its five year range of values. The services sector is in the bottom 12% of its five year range. The industrial sector is the best performing sector but stands only in the 60th percentile of its range. As a result of these standings the overall business index resides in the 28th percentile of its range.
The sector indices paint an unclear picture of the Japanese economy. While the trends for the indices are still rising, except for construction, the recent weakness for industry and services is disturbing.
| Key Japanese Sector Surveys | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raw readings of each survey | Percent of 5Yr range* | ||||||
| Indices | Mar-10 | Feb-10 | Jan-10 | Dec-09 | Mar-10 | Feb-10 | Jan-10 |
| Biz Activity(METI:Indices) | 93.8 | 94.6 | 96.8 | 93.6 | 28.4% | 34.3% | 50.7% |
| Construction | 75.2 | 78.2 | 75.0 | 74.5 | 2.6% | 13.9% | 1.9% |
| Industry | 94.8 | 93.7 | 94.3 | 90.4 | 60.5% | 57.6% | 59.2% |
| Tertiary(serv) | 95.5 | 98.5 | 98.8 | 96.0 | 12.1% | 45.1% | 48.4% |
Robert Brusca
AuthorMore in Author Profile »Robert A. Brusca is Chief Economist of Fact and Opinion Economics, a consulting firm he founded in Manhattan. He has been an economist on Wall Street for over 25 years. He has visited central banking and large institutional clients in over 30 countries in his career as an economist. Mr. Brusca was a Divisional Research Chief at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY (Chief of the International Financial markets Division), a Fed Watcher at Irving Trust and Chief Economist at Nikko Securities International. He is widely quoted and appears in various media. Mr. Brusca holds an MA and Ph.D. in economics from Michigan State University and a BA in Economics from the University of Michigan. His research pursues his strong interests in non aligned policy economics as well as international economics. FAO Economics’ research targets investors to assist them in making better investment decisions in stocks, bonds and in a variety of international assets. The company does not manage money and has no conflicts in giving economic advice.
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