Recession in Japan, China's stimulus and UK’s data

Perhaps the main event and surprise of yesterday were the devastating data on Japan's GDP for the fourth quarter. The country's GDP fell by 1.6% (the forecast was a decline of 0.9%) in terms of q/q and 6.3% in relation to the same quarter last year (the worst result since 2014). This is a very alarming signal for the global economy because Japan is the third-largest economy in the world. And although the reasons for such a failure are generally justified - a destructive typhoon and tax increases, the picture does not become less depressing.

Given that China is Japan's largest trading partner, there is every reason to expect weak data in the first quarter of 2020 (consequences of the coronavirus epidemic). Do not forget about the loss of the tourism sector in Japan from China's ban on the travel of citizens. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of tourists from China who were supposed to visit Japan but did not visit with all the ensuing economic consequences.

The second consecutive quarter of GDP decline is already officially a recession. That is, what we have been talking about for quite some time in our reviews is beginning to take on an increasingly clear line.

What is characteristic, the Japanese yen against the background of such crushing statistics were not exposed to sales. Obviously, the demand for a safe haven asset in her person outweighs the desire to sell the yen to work out weak data. In this light, our desire to buy gold only intensified. Purchases of the Japanese yen, despite such weak data, also look good from current points.

China, meanwhile, maybe trying to generate optimism after several weeks of continuous negativity. And this is not only about the statistics on the epidemic, which is beginning to decline but also about the position of the Chinese authorities, who yesterday promised to strengthen the stimulation of the economy in order to compensate for the negative consequences of the coronavirus. It is planned to reduce corporate taxes and increase government spending.

Despite this positive, we believe that the damage has already been done and the world economy will still feel it in the first quarter. And the epidemic itself is still ongoing. According to experts, the Chinese economy will return to less or less normal functioning no earlier than in a month.

In this regard, we recall our recommendation to sell oil. Demand for oil from China continues to fall, and refinery loading drops at a gigantic pace (at some plants, the decline was 10-20%). According to Citi analysts, the total volume of oil refining in China fell by 2 million barrels per day, while oil demand in China in February may show a decrease of 3.5 million BPD. These are very serious figures for the oil market. So we use any attempts to grow the asset as an occasion for its sales.
For the British pound today is a pretty important day in terms of macroeconomic statistics - a block of data on the UK labor market will be published. In the past couple of days, the pound has somewhat lost its fuse, which was received in the form of promises to increase government spending. Today's data can either increase pressure on the pound, or give it the opportunity to return to growth. So we follow the numbers and adjust the positions depending on the nature of the data.