Japan Economy News:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20200131/p2g/00m/0bu/048000c


https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/japan-december-factory-output-rises-235538964.html

Ideas:

Whichever article you read you see both some positives and some negatives. Actually, as is common in many articles about similar topics, you might see differing ideas.

Economies are very complex, with many different sets of variables in play at any one time. An economy is made up of many different sectors and industries.  It must be noted there will always be positives and negatives in any economy at any one time.

There will never be all positive and all negative related to all the industries and sectors in an economy.

There might be a select group of sectors that someone has decided is more important than others, but even then, there will be positives and negatives.

It is important to note that an economy is organic, in that it is always in a state of motion, always moving toward positive or moving toward negative and never idle, there is always movement, one way or another.

Its also important to see the big picture and not rely too much, or think too much on quarter to quarter, because of the idea of an economy is always changing, always moving.

The quarter to quarter ideas, are more related to what stockholders are looking for. They want instant results never seeing the big picture. They want what they want today.

Economies always change, they are never linear up or down.

The same with the ideas  of what we see in the articles. Industrial output for example, can always change depending on domestic factors and external or global factors.

The same with consumer spending in Japan. Consumer spending has always been a concern, especially with the Bank of Japan and the Inflation target of 2%.

Consumer spending maybe is as much as 60% of the Japanese economy.

But because the Japanese economy is the 3rd largest economy in the world, even if consumer spending is never what the BOJ wants, there is still a lot of consumer spending taking place.

Most likely no central bank is happy with its own county's consumer spending, always wanting more.

So to finalize, economic news can always have positives and negatives but the big picture should always be seen as an economy is always going to have some positives and some negatives at any one time.

The idea again is to focus on the big picture and the long term, not just the negative of the short term.

© 2020, Tom Metts, all rights reserved