The Dow Jones Industrial Average plunged through the psychologically important 16,000 mark in yesterday’s sell-off, while the S&P 500 and Nasdaq slid 2% and 2.3%, respectively.
But in Japan, a Lunar New Year’s treat for investors: The ever-volatile Nikkei 225 snapped a four-day losing streak to end up 1%. That’s performance that most American investors would kill for right now.
For that, we can look to Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda, a faithful practitioner of the “Abenomics” that have kept Japan’s stock markets curiously (some may say insanely) buoyant in these sell-happy times… only at the cost of wrecking the country’s long-term economic health.
Kuroda created shockwaves late last month when he announced he was taking a key Japanese deposit rate negative, bringing the worldwide total of sovereign debt “paying” negative interest to $5 trillion.
I don’t doubt that Yellen & Co. are watching events in Japan’s central banking sector and stock market with equal parts anxiety and interest: They have a foundering economy and a plunging stock market on their hands – even if they’re not “officially” supposed to care about the stock market.
Those markets have reached a state of “bad news is good news” again, with markets rallying a bit as they price in a more dovish stance behind disappointing economic data.
That’s cutting off the Fed’s options, and soon the only logical place for the Fed to turn will be more easing… and negative deposit rates.
So today I’m going to show you the investment to own for the liquidity crisis that’s bound to follow – and ruin the unprepared…
The Bank of Japan Is Desperate
That’s why, in a surprise move, it just introduced a deposit rate of -0.1% for commercial banks. What that means is banks will now have to pay rather than be paid for hoarding cash.
