Japan’s exports fell for a fifth consecutive month - trade balance recap

Japanese trade balance data for April is here:

• Japan data - April exports a big miss, come in at -2.4% y/y (expected -1.6%)

And also:

• Japan - Core machine orders for March beat: +3.8% (expected 0.0%)

The FT recap:

• Japan's exports … falling for a fifth consecutive month
• shipments to China dropped
• Imports... largest increase since November

core machine orders

• a leading indicator for capital expenditure
• an improvement on the previous month
• outperformed forecasts