As Japanese Bankruptcies Soar, Goldman Warns “Further Yen Depreciation Could Be A Net Burden”

It is no secret that one of the primary drivers of relentless S&P 500 levitation over the past two years, ever since the start of Japan’s mammoth QE, has been the use of the Yen as the carry currency of choice (once again as during the credit bubble of the early-2000s), whose shorting has directly resulted in E-mini levitation. One look at the intraday chart of any JPY pair and the S&P500 is largely sufficient to confirm this. Those days, however, may be coming to an end, at least according to Goldman which overnight released a note saying that the Yen is “Almost at breakeven: Further yen depreciation could be a net burden.”

Here are the highlights:

The yen has depreciated quickly beyond ¥115/US$ from the ¥107/US$ level since the FOMC made the decision to terminate quantitative easing and the BOJ surprised with additional easing at the end of October. This has prompted concern over possible damage to Japan as a whole if the yen weakens further.

Using industry input/output tables to investigate the costs and benefits of a weak yen, we find that the manufacturing sector still reaps forex translation gains under Japan’s current economic structure. However, in materials and nonmanufacturing industries that have limited opportunity to pass on forex-driven cost growth to exports, the costs of a weak yen far outweigh the benefits. According to our calculations, a 25% decline in the yen’s valueresults in a ¥4.1 tn net cost increase for Japanese industry as a whole since 2012 and a ¥10.5 bn increase in household sector import inducement.

By contrast, the decline in commodity prices is a substantial relief. A 10% decline in commodity prices cancels out the increase in net cost borne by 14.5% yen depreciation. The 25% decline in commodity prices so far (oil price) offsets the net cost increase borne by 35% yen weakness. Calculating from the late 2012 rate of ¥78/US$, 35% depreciation works out to a rate of ¥120/US$. In other words, the combination of the oil price around US$80/bbl and the yen exchange rate of ¥120/US$ is just about at breakeven, netting out the benefit and cost of yen depreciation and oil price decline since Abenomics began.

That said, our commodities research team sees limited scope for further decline in crude oil prices, while we expect the yen to depreciate further as the FRB and BOJ’s policies diverge. If further yen depreciation is not accompanied by real economic growth in the form of an export volume recovery and broad wage increases, and ends up merely producing forex translation gains, we believe it could very well place an increased burden on the Japanese economy as a whole. Needless to say, the cost burden will ease if the rapid decline in oil price over the last few days stabilizes at the low levels.