An important read if you're interested in CRE/Ueda steps up his yen rhetoric/Riksbank cuts/Company comments

We know full well the difficulties those are having in commercial real estate if one has low cost debt coming due this year, regardless of asset class and what is going on in office. Regardless though of one's balance sheet, the value of CRE has fallen everywhere with cap rates higher, except if you are Blackstone REIT, their private real estate fund that continues to show amazing but puzzling resiliency in terms of their valuation marks, especially relative to its publicly traded peers. In these pages over the past couple of years and my talks with them directly have questioned how this major fund of real estate holdings has been able to buck the trend. Well, that scrutiny has finally reached the writings of Bethany McLean. I recommend the read if you're following CRE and/or Blackstone's stock. https://www.businessinsider.com/blackstone-breit-commercial-real-estate-fund-misled-investors-private-equity-2024-5

It's not having an impact on the yen today, which is actually lower, but the words of BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda is stepping up the verbal rhetoric about its weakness and he's finally realizing only his actions with respect to interest rates will sustainably matter in strengthening it. He said today in parliament, "Foreign exchange rates make a significant impact on the economy and inflation. Depending on those moves, a monetary policy response might be needed."

The Minister of Finance Shunichi Suzuki also spoke and highlighted why a weak yen is not a good thing for the Japanese citizenry. He said, "While the weak yen has pluses and minuses, right now I have strong concerns about the minus side with the upward pressure on import prices...Since Japan relies on overseas markets for food and energy, and a large portion of its transactions are denominated in dollars, a weaker yen could raise prices of imported goods."