Holiday Market Summary

With all of Europe and the Americas closed for holiday, what little market action there was overnight came out of Asia, where China once again was engaged in its last hour “National Team” market manipulation, which saved the SHCOMP from a red close after the now traditional last hour buying spree, pushed the Shanghai Composite from red on the session an hour before close to near the highs of the day.
Elsewhere Japan’s Nikkei rose 0.7% after tracking the weakening yen as it always does tick for tick, which in turn dropped on some more BOJ jawboning (BOJ board member Harada says negative rate can go lower and there is room for more easing), although the biggest weekly gain in the USDJPY in two months was driven by news that Japanese investors bought record sum of foreign bonds and stocks last week as local investors continue their “silent bank run” (first noted two months ago) in an attempt to get away from Japan’s oppressive negative rates.
And since this, by definition, is Yen-negative, and since the entire Japane stock market is a function of currency strength, Japan’s capital flight from local stocks was…. bullish for local stocks.
Ah, the magic of centrally-planned markets.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on 03/25/2016 –.