Gavin Parry

It's all about interest rate differentials, and expectations.

The street is all hot and sweaty for a duel bazooka to be launched on both fiscal and monetary nature.

It's going to come down to the yen. We expect the BOJ to do nothing. So if the Fed does nothing, and the BOJ does nothing, there is nothing there for the US dollar to strengthen.

It's quite a huge thing, I think the hypothetical impact could be that the EU itself has to rethink about itself (if Britain leaves the EU)... Things like that could disrupt the yen.

Things are very central-bank driven at the moment, japan Inc. has reported its earnings and with no other catalysts on the horizon investors are going to remain very focused on what central banks are doing.

It's nice to see the Nikkei blast up above 17,000 points but it's hard to imagine that we'll hold this level with so much global uncertainty and geopolitical risk, it's only a matter of time before we see another exogenous shock that sends the yen higher due to its status as a safe-haven currency.

In a lot of respects I think yesterday's selling of Mitsubishi was a bit overdone, from what we know so far it's all very domestic, with no U.S. impact and no impact in Europe, and I think people are a bit hasty to cast this in the same light as the Volkswagen scandal. But of course the facts aren't all in yet, so it's hard to know for sure.

Ahead of the weekend we're seeing some unwinding of long positions, and less long buying coming in from investors due to the incredible velocity of the yen's appreciation, fast Retailing is also yoking the market this morning.

Recently 17,000 points has been a support level for the Nikkei but right now it's kind of yolked by the yen's strength, which isn't very surprising given the dollar's weakness.

With Japan's inflation being zero, people are going to expect the BOJ to expand the balance sheet and stoke liquidity again, those expectations aren't hurting the Nikkei, which is also benefiting from a weaker yen and from buyers hoping to pick up dividends in June.

The dollar/yen cross into 110 territory is significant because that's a psychological level, but the fact is Japanese exporters will be profitable even if the yen strengthens well beyond where it is now.

We've seen a bit of a leg down on the firmer yen, but the outcome of the BOJ meeting is basically what we've all been expecting, it is noteworthy that they've removed language saying that they might cut interest rates further if necessary, and that they've decided to exclude (money-reserve funds) from negative interest rates starting in May.

There was already concern that Kuroda may have run out of bullets, we now see a higher probability that the BOJ will wait to see what FOMC moves come, especially since the new BOJ board member joining will replace a prior dissenter.

Sharp has the technology to build out the components to compete with Samsung as an Apple supplier, which means that with Sharp under its umbrella Foxconn can help Apple wean itself off Samsung, this gives Foxconn better pricing power with Apple.

Today's gains were definitely yen driven but it should be noted that we're not seeing the yen weaken as much as we might have expected given the data we saw out of the U.S. at the end of last week.

Confidence in the U.S. economy is just as important as geopolitical risk when it comes to thinking about risk aversion, and Wal-Mart's slide is significant in that it doesn't bode well for consumer spending in the U.S., it's effect on risk appetite may have been amplified by the fact that U.S. CPI figures due ahead of the weekend are expected by some to show contraction.

The impact of the stronger yen in January was definitely one factor, another was the impact of slowing exports to China, Japan's largest trading partner, which is a further indication of the slowdown there.

We've been stuck in a downward trend channel and, in the long term that 17,000 point level is going to be an imperative test for the Nikkei, we're having a good day but it's going to take time for conviction to return.

The market's recent nervousness was factoring in a lot of uncertainty over China's GDP, so a weak number should be somewhat factored in while a strong figure could end up being a catalyst for better market sentiment.

Mothers is very heavily retail, which means a lot of domestics are pushing the button.