Japanese Retail Sales Collapse By Most On Record

Given the pre-tax-hike surge, the oh-so-smart economists around the world were expecting some give-back from dragged-forward demand but the 13.7% MoM decline missed expectations by 2 percentage points. 

This was the largest MoM decline on record. Talking heads are already blaming the tax hike (but they knew all about it?) and year-over-year was just as dismal (and less immediately prone to events) as it fell by the most since the 2011 Tsunami. Bad news (the worst) is good news though right? Well no - USDJPY is down as is Nikkei as remember, Japanese inflation pressures are building and Kuroda has pushed off any actions from the BoJ for now.

Japan Retail Sales MoM - worst on record...

and YoY this is the biggest drop since the Tsunami...

Well played Abe...no wonder you are begging rich people to sya for vacation and spend...

Japanese govt considers extending duration of stay for affluent foreign tourists to maximum 1 year from current 90 days, Nikkei newspaper reports, without attribution.

Govt plans to set income, asset and age requirements by summer and implement new measures as early as this year: Nikkei

Measures aim at boosting consumption and property investment: Nikkei

Govt aims to double no. of foreign visitors to 20m by 2020, when Tokyo hosts the Summer Olympics: Nikkei

Please stay and spend money... cox the Japanese people sure can't now everything they need is going up.

Perhaps Spinal Tap have th enext move for Apenomics?

Zero Hedge