Exports up, but imports up too ... which means the expected balance is a deficit this month:

Trade balance:

  • expected Y -1020.2bn, prior was Y 358.7bn

Trade balance (adjusted):

  • expected Y 143.9bn, prior was Y 86.8bn

Exports y/y:

  • expected 9.4%, prior was 9.3%

Imports y/y:

  • expected 7.8%, prior was 14.9%

The data is due at 2350 gmt

GMT

This preview via Nomura (bolding mine).

Nomura are expecting:

  • 15.4% y-o-y increase in nominal exports
  • 11.4% increase in nominal imports
  • a trade deficit (original series) of JPY1,003.6bn
  • a seasonally adjusted trade surplus of JPY364.6bn
  • There were two fewer business days in the first 20 days of this January than in the first 20 days of January last year, while the remainder of the month has one more business day this year than in 2017.
  • These differences in the number of business days in each part of the month suggest that year-on-year growth in exports and imports for the rest of the month will prove to have been stronger than in the first 20 days.
  • Celebrations of the lunar new year across Asia typically disrupt trends in Japan's imports and exports in January and February.
  • The first day of the new lunar year is 16 February this year and precedent suggests that this creates a seasonal distortion that probably lifted Japan's exports in January this year while lowering its imports.
  • Attempting to discern larger trends using January or February data is a fraught exercise, because of the lunar new year effect. Moreover, we see little likelihood of the global economy missing expectations in the immediate future. Nonetheless, it looks likely to us that the lunar new year effect will put downward pressure on Japan's exports in February, and we accordingly believe that Japan's exports could show slower average quarter-on-quarter growth in the January-March quarter than the 1.7% average increase in October-December 2017.