Household Spending for May 2024 -1.8% y/y
- expected 0.1%, prior 0.5%
For the m/m -0.3%
- expected +0.5%, prior -1.2%
Cited amongst reasons for the dramatic drop:
- higher prices continued to squeeze consumers' purchasing power
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Well, that's a terrible result! Japanese policymakers are trying to achieve sustained economic growth underpinned by rising wages and durable inflation. This is seen as a prerequisite to normalising monetary policy.
This sort of data result is not going to support Bank of Japan interest rate hikes though. At the margin a yen negative.
