JAPAN DATA: Japan’s negative output gap — excess capacity vs.
slack demand — shrank to -3.5% in the July-September quarter from a
revised -4.3% (preliminary -4.5%) in April-June, improving for four
straight quarters, the Cabinet Office said. The Q3 negative gap was the
smallest since -1.4% marked in Q3 of 2008, when the U.S. investment firm
Lehman Brothers collapsed. “The negative output gap is improving but it
remains large. Close attention should be paid to its development as the
economy is pausing,” the Cabinet Office said.