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CNBC | Japan machinery orders rise 4.7% in August

By October 8, 2014October 9th, 2014In the News

Japan’s core machinery orders, a leading indicator of capital spending, rose for the third straight month in August.

Core machinery orders rose 4.7 percent on month in August, above expectations for a 0.9 percent increase in a Reuters’ poll and faster than July’s 3.5 percent increase.

“It’s good to see some of these Japanese numbers coming in better than expected. If you look at what they’ve done to their monetary policy, its three times the size of what we have in the U.S. Hopefully it’s going to work,” said Mark Okada, co-founder & CIO at Highland Capital Management.

“We want to see fiscal policy matching monetary policy… perhaps Japan gets to see that with the third arrow thing… but certainly I think long-term, it takes a long time for monetary policy to translate into job growth, wage pressure. These sort of things are what we’re experiencing in the U.S.,” he said.

The government raised its assessment of machinery orders pointing to signs of a moderate pick-up.

The figures came after Japan revised its second quarter gross domestic product (GDP) reading lower last month. The revised figure showed the economy contracted an annualized 7.1 percent, worse than an initial reading of 6.8 percent, marking the biggest contraction since the first quarter of 2009 as a hike in the consumption tax dragged economic growth.

FULL STORY – Japan machinery orders rise 4.7% in August