Anyone keeping his/her finger on the pulse of financial markets feels elevated heartbeat. Whether it is the sign of excitement that the recent symptoms were those of panic attacks and the patience is otherwise in good health or hides growing anxiety that an infectious disease called recession is about to spread faster than the Covid-19 virus in 2020 is ambivalent.
The quite remarkable market carnage seen yesterday has been somewhat calmed with the biggest catalyst for all the damage, namely the Nikkei, recovering nearly 75% of the value it lost. Experts and commentators pick over the bones of yesterday's bloodbath and again blame mainly falls onto Japan and the BoJ's probable quantitative tightening, the strength in the Yen and an evacuation of the so called 'carry' trade in global assets priced to Japan's currency.
For a year now investors had been positioning themselves for the time when the Federal Reserve decides to lower the cost of borrowing after keeping at ay 5.5% since July 2023. The move, the thinking went, would signal that inflation had been reined in and soft landing had been achieved.
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