Japan economic cycle has peaked

 The chart below shows the official Japanese coinciding index through November, against the PMI index for Japan (December).  The PMI quite often leads at the cyclical peak, sometimes by several months, but usually has a shorter lead at the trough of the cycle.   The official leading index for Japan is falling, too, and so are some of my longer-leading indices.   Japan hasn't raised interest rates, and though like most other countries, its inflation has risen to 35 year highs, it hasn't risen as much as, say, the US's.  So one might expect that it could avoid a deep recession.  Still, it's strongly connected to the world economy.  We shall see.  What is clear is that the recession has begun.