Word: shirakawa
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Development (OECD) projects that 2009 GDP will grow 0.1% in Japan, compared with 0.9% in the U.S. and 0.5% across the Eurozone. "Financial-debt-to-GDP ratio is an advantage, and debt in the private sector has not increased, unlike in the U.S. and European countries," says Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief economist at Credit Suisse Japan. "The economy is less vulnerable." Nevertheless, he says, Japan is not an island: nothing points to an economic recovery in Japan unless the global economy picks up. According to Andreas Schuster, head of research at CLSA, a private-equity firm based in Hong Kong...
...Analysts in Japan say the U.S. faces a similar situation today. The Fed's recent rate cut "is better than doing nothing, but it will unlikely work so much as it did in the past," says Masaaki Kanno, chief economist at JPMorgan Securities in Tokyo. Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief economist at Credit Suisse in Tokyo, believes that the Fed may bring its rates down to zero by the middle of 2009, as the U.S. economy slows in coming quarters. "Will it be effective or stimulative? My answer is not necessarily so," he says...
...That's because as U.S. rates fall, fewer investors are willing to hold U.S. dollar debt, which undermines the value of American currency vs. the yen - and a stronger yen is bad news for Japan. It makes the country's exports more expensive, curtailing economic growth. Credit Suisse's Shirakawa believes the chances of the BOJ returning to a zero rate is less than 50%, "because they know that a return to a zero-rate policy doesn't help the economy much." But, he says, "they know that the risk is that the yen appreciation will be quite significant...
...Smaller lenders are increasingly under stress due to the country's stumbling economy and growing competition with new banks set up by the ongoing privatization of Japan's postal system, which for decades acted as a government-run banking system. Hiromichi Shirakawa, chief economist at Credit Suisse Japan, says that several regional banks have also been hurt by investments in securities sold by the bankrupt Wall Street giant Lehman Brothers, and by soured subprime-related securities holdings...
...began failing in large numbers. New City Residence Investment Corp. became the first REIT to go under since stocks of property trusts were first allowed to trade publicly on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in 2001. "The major REIT failure last week has affected the regional banks' balance sheets," says Shirakawa, adding that the trusts could be bellwethers signaling trouble for the real estate sector at large. "Property cash flows and the general economy are weakening. Banks have tightened their credit policy and some REITs cannot refinance themselves," Shirakawa says. "We will probably see more failures of REITs...