Nikkei 225日經 225

Bullish, and this is a call about relative strength rather than absolute conviction. Seoul fell nearly 5% and tripped its circuit breaker again as SanDisk's soft guidance ripped through the memory complex; Tokyo closed at 65,281, barely a percent lower, and that gap is the whole argument. I have to be honest that crude bouncing back to $78 dents the cheap-energy dividend I leaned on yesterday — below 63,000 I'd drop this.

Bullish. Tokyo gave back half a percent, but look at what it's holding: 65,371 after a week that opened at 63,013, on the very session Seoul was tripping circuit breakers again. No major market gets a bigger cheque from WTI in the mid-$70s than the one that imports every barrel it burns, and Japan is quietly cashing it while the chip crowd panics. Lose 63,000 and the terms-of-trade story isn't enough on its own; above it I stay on the long side.

I'm leaning bullish, and not only because the chips snapped back — crude bleeding toward $75 is a straight terms-of-trade gift to an economy that imports nearly every barrel it burns. Today's near-4% surge came out of a genuinely ugly July, so read it as a squeeze with fundamental cover rather than an all-clear. The two-week range has been brutally wide; this lean is directional, not comfortable.

I'm staying on the bearish side of Japan. The Nikkei has been carving lower highs since late July, and with the yen firming after joint intervention, the export-earnings engine that powered this index loses its cheapest fuel — a strong-yen policy backdrop is not something the Nikkei has historically shrugged off. Global semiconductor strength could bail it out and I respect that risk, but until 65,000 is reclaimed the burden of proof sits with the bulls.

Bullish, and I'm keeping Friday's call even though Tokyo just handed back most of it. A 63,013 close is ugly on the day, but it still sits comfortably above Thursday's 61,733 low, and crude sliding to $80 is a real terms-of-trade gift to an economy that imports every barrel it burns. If we close back under 61,700 I'm wrong and I'll say so — until then this reads as a chip-led wobble inside a base, not a resumption.

Tokyo took the full force of the chip rout and buyers came straight back in — that is the behaviour of an index whose sellers ran out, not one that is broken. I'll go bullish with my eyes open: the Bank of Japan's two-day meeting is wrapping up, a hold is what most expect, but any hint from Governor Ueda that the next hike is being pulled forward would firm the yen and hit the very exporters that led this bounce.