Economic Data Out of Japan Hits the Skids

“Japan’s current-account surplus was the smallest for the month of May since at least 1985 and machinery orders fell the most in more than a decade.

The excess in the widest measure of trade shrank 63 percent from a year earlier to 215.1 billion yen ($2.7 billion), the Ministry of Finance said in Tokyo today. The median estimate of 24 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for a surplus of 493.1 billion yen. Machinery orders, an indicator of capital spending, fell 14.8 percent in May from the previous month, the Cabinet Office said, the biggest drop since 2001.”

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