While thumbing through long-term futures, the chart of the Nikkei caught my eye, since it seems like a very well-formed and quite gargantuan top.
What’s tricky, though, and makes this less alluring, is that Japan’s central bank has managed for decades to stave off the inevitable by printing up quadrillions (literally) of yen, creating a simulacrum of prosperity. The market has topped out many times, but more often than not, it just shrugs it off.
One way to trade this, the EWJ, seems to lay out the same story. Japan just keeps trudging higher along that trendline. This is a long way to go to say that I’m not doing anything about it, but it’s interesting, nonetheless.
Looking at Slope’s absolutely fantastic Global Economic Charts, the data portrays a country which is literally and figuratively dying:
