Japan: more icing on an appealing cake

The prospect of more monetary easing after a snap election to be held in October is another dollop of icing on an already appealing cake.

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Abe: a bold move to call a snap election
(Image credit: 2017 The Asahi Shimbun)

Shinzo Abe is clearly undaunted by the fate of the last sitting prime minister who decided to call a snap election. Japan's head of government announced this week that elections for the Lower House will take place on 22 October. For now, at least, the move bodes well for investors, says Leo Lewis in the Financial Times. A Goldman Sachs study of the eight previous elections shows that the broad Topix index rose during the 20 days before polling 88% of the time.

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Andrew Van Sickle
Editor, MoneyWeek

Andrew is the editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He grew up in Vienna and studied at the University of St Andrews, where he gained a first-class MA in geography & international relations.

After graduating he began to contribute to the foreign page of The Week and soon afterwards joined MoneyWeek at its inception in October 2000. He helped Merryn Somerset Webb establish it as Britain’s best-selling financial magazine, contributing to every section of the publication and specialising in macroeconomics and stockmarkets, before going part-time.

His freelance projects have included a 2009 relaunch of The Pharma Letter, where he covered corporate news and political developments in the German pharmaceuticals market for two years, and a multiyear stint as deputy editor of the Barclays account at Redwood, a marketing agency.

Andrew has been editing MoneyWeek since 2018, and continues to specialise in investment and news in German-speaking countries owing to his fluent command of the language.