Reuters Tankan for September shows tiny improvement

Reuters Tankan is a monthly survey that seeks to track the Bank of Japan’s tankan quarterly survey

• Japan manufacturers index +4 in October, unchanged from September
• Non-manufacturers
  index +24 in October vs +23 in September
• Manufacturers
  January index seen at +5, non-manufacturers +20

The survey covered familiar ground:

• prospect of higher U.S. interest rates has weakened the
  Japanese yen, hurting the country’s terms of trade
• concerns about a spike in oil prices also weighing on
  sentiment
• downside risks from the global economy have
  weighed on confidence
• rising cost of doing business due to surging raw materials prices that were aggravated by a weak yen

Some of the highlighted comments from firms:

• “Our business conditions are not so good, because there’s a
  divide among those who benefit from recovery in car production
  and those who suffer from China’s overall economic slowdown,”
• “Uncertainty around the outlook is high,”

—

Reuters poll of 502 large- and mid-sized companies

• 249 firms responded
• respondents spoke on the
  condition of anonymity
• Reuters Tankan indexes are calculated by subtracting the
  percentage of pessimistic respondents from optimistic ones. A
  positive reading means optimists outnumber pessimists.