This week was a bad day for women journalists. First Le Monde fired its senior editor, Natalie Nougayrède and The New York Times fired its executive editor Jill Abramson.
The NYT is a recidivist since a couple of years ago its publisher Arthur Sulzberger jr fired its CEO, Janet Robinson, and replaced her with a somewhat tainted former BBC director-general, Mark Thompson.
This lady editor-publisher cannot be fired as she owns this newsletter.
 That’s just as well as I got quite a lot of flak from readers in faraway lands and the USA for running a negative article about Japan’s economic outlook yesterday, from our correspondent there, Chris Loew. As is our usage, it was published without quotation marks, since he is our paid reporter. I ran it because it seemed to show a change in his view on Abenomics and Japanese growth. He know Japan well as a decades-long resident, with a Japanese wife, a Japanese apartment and mortgage, and a Japanese dog, plus two half-Japanese children who keep him alert to hot trends. I know nothing about Japan myself.
Today it was reported that Japanese Q1 growth figures surged to 5.9% annualized, vs 0.3% in the last quarter of 2013. Q1 GNP also beat consensus forecasts of 4.2%.
The boost came from a Japanese shopping spree ahead of a rise in the sales tax April 1, to 8% from 5%. So the boom in consumption was a one-off.
The 4.9% rise in Q1 corporate capital expenditure also reported today may not herald better growth ahead, as Chris attributes it to companies spending money to replace Windows XP which Microsoft dropped. Here is more comment from Chris, our expert. He notes that Japan’s trade balance fell to minus yen 10.86 trillion (~$10.9 bn) to replace shut-in nuclear power stations with imports while losing its electronics export edge to China and South Korea. His comments on specific stocks are below for paid subscribers.
Meanwhile Japanese stocks fell despite the seemingly good quarterly GDP growth supporting skeptical Chris.
More from Japan, Canada, Israel, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, The Netherlands, Britain, and Switzerland, including a company report.
*Zurich Financial today reported Q1 profits up 20% (in dollars, its reporting currency) to $1.27 bn thanks to a drop in claims for catastrophes and cost-cutting. Operating profit rose 2%. ZURVY’s combined ratio (claims paid out vs costs per dollar earned, on which a lower number is better) fell by 100 bp to 93.9% y/y which is the main reason for the net jump. General insurance gross premiums and operating profits and were flat. Life insurance was the only business growing, with operating profits up 4% on gross premiums up 5%. Return on shareholders’ equity reached 16.2% vs prior year 14.1%.
