Today’s upward revision of GDP unlikely to boost confidence for Japan

Today GDP data showed that Japanese economy shrank only by 0.3% in second quarter compared to previous estimate of 0.4% contraction and comfortably beating median estimate of 0.5% contraction.

However this upward revision in GDP data is not likely to boost confidence among investors over Japanese economy.

• Business spending data got revised to -0.9% contraction, much larger than original estimate of -0.1%.
• Decline in private consumption got trimmed but still large enough at -0.7%.
• Gain came from rising inventories, which is unlikely to sustain.
• In spite of upward revision in GDP figures, economy contracted nevertheless and continue show uneven pace of recovery even after 6 years from financial crisis of 2008/09, after 3 years into Bank of Japan's (BOJ) massive quantitative easing.
• After showing revival, Japanese economy faced steep contraction after sales tax were increased from 5% to 8% last year and hasn't recovered from that yet. Sales tax will be increased from current 8% to 10% going ahead.

Though BOJ is expected to keep pumping liquidity, there are now considerable uncertainty on how much benefit it can provide to real economy.

Yen is currently trading at 119.7 against Dollar, while Nikkei future is hovering around 17930.