Japan grew 0.6% in Q1.

That’s a 2.4% annualized growth rate but, of course, that’s priced in Yen, which are down 14.8% since last year so, in fact, Japan’s economy, in Dollar terms, is losing 12.4% from last year. This is not the headline you’ll hear in the MSM though, where the overwhelming message is “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and, in fact, Robert Shiller just wrote an article telling people to cheer the F’ck up to avoid a Depression.  

As you can see from the chart above, adding 80Tn Yen worth of debt in the last 5 years has only added 25Tn Yen worth of GDP and the current 495Tn Yen GDP is still well below 2007’s 505Tn Yen and, at the time 505Tn Yen was worth $5.5Tn but now, 495Tn Yen is only worth 41.25Tn so, in Dollar terms (or any steady currency), the GDP of Japan has actually DROPPED 25% since 2007 and this quarter’s “boost” of 0.6% comes on the back of an additional 5% drop in they Yen since Q4 of last year.  

Yet no one will mention this in the MSM.  Why?  Well first of all it’s complicated and even NYTimes readers’s eyes glaze over when you start doing math.  Secondly, it doesn’t fit the narrative that our Corporate Masters want you to swallow – that QE is working and more QE is better and all that matters is that the stock market goes up and everything else will be fine.  

I ranted about this in yesterday’s Live Trading Webinar and you can watch a replay of that HERE, so I won’t get into it again.  We also made $100/contract live trading the Russell Futures and our bullish trade on Gasoline Futures (/RB) that we played into the close is already up $1,000 per contract this morning as /RB is back over $2.02 already (you’re welcome).

So, moving on from Japan (and I sent out an Member’s Alert this morning with in-depth coverage and trade ideas), as you can see fromDave Fry’s SPY chart, our record highs are still coming on record low volumes and that means that what is easily done can just as easily be undone with the flick of an HFT switch.