Icarus Asia Research
Research and commentary by Icarus Asia Research, published on Asian Value Investor.
News · Policy · Japan · 2 Oct 2026
Sanae Takaichi's long post on X lists falling visa approvals and a higher bar for permanent residency. It does not say how many of the rejected applicants were breaking the rules.
Deep Dive · Macro · US · 30 Sept 2026
The McKinsey Global Institute estimates the country could add more jobs than automation removes. About 11 million workers would have to change occupations to fill them, and only one in seven has a direct route.
News · Policy · Japan, China, India · 23 Sept 2026
China doesn't just mine rare earths. It makes nearly all the world's rare-earth magnets, and in 2025 it used that chokehold to force its way into trade talks with Washington. U.S. President Donald Trump can't afford to ignore the leverage days weeks away from the end of the one-year deal.
News · Macro · US · 22 Sept 2026
Nine months ago the site at Eastern Creek, a stretch of light-industrial land on Sydney's western fringe, was mostly empty. Brisbane-headquartered NextDC, Australia’s largest listed developer and operator of such…
Deep Dive · Rates & FX · Japan · 21 Sept 2026
The Bank of Japan's September hike was priced, and markets read it as dovish. The effects on global yields, yen carry and risk assets run through slower channels.
News · Macro · Japan · 20 Sept 2026
Higher Japanese bond yields let the country's pension funds and insurers earn what they need with less overseas duration. This comes as Japan's Treasury holdings fall every month since April.
News · Rates & FX · US · 17 Sept 2026
Kevin Warsh had a phrase ready when reporters asked him, again, why the Federal Reserve was raising interest rates into an economy he himself described as strong. The central bank, the Fed chair said, was simply…
Deep Dive · Rates & FX · US · 14 Sept 2026
The 10-year Treasury touched its highest yield since 2007 on Monday. Buyers showed up again. A term premium near 0.9 percentage point means the next test will be harder to pass.
News · Macro · India · 14 Sept 2026
India's statistical overhaul cut ₹43.9 lakh crore, about $464 billion, from the country's measured economy. None of it was lost production. Why it vanished is also why this quarter's 7.8 percent growth rate cannot be checked from the outside.
News · Rates & FX · US · 14 Sept 2026
For about four minutes on Monday morning, the bond market did something it had not done since the summer of 2007. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, the benchmark that sets the price of everything from a 30-year…
Deep Dive · Macro · India · 12 Sept 2026
The 7.8 percent print survives arithmetic reconstruction. What it rests on is a set of price assumptions that published data cannot verify.
News · Rates & FX · US · 10 Sept 2026
A $6 billion buyback was supposed to calm the $29 trillion bond market. Instead the 10-year yield closed at its highest level since 2023, a reminder for even the exalted that math has a way of teaching hubris.
News · Rates & FX · US · 10 Sept 2026
A bigger buyback lifted yields for one session in August. Three weeks later a $6 billion operation landed at the low end of expectations, and the 10-year note went on to its highest close since November 2023.
News · Macro · India · 5 Sept 2026
Officials say India's economy grew 7.8 percent last quarter. A former finance secretary says the real figure is 2.6. Between those two numbers sits a change to India's statistical methods that nobody outside the government has yet been allowed to check.
News · Markets · US · 3 Sept 2026
Twenty-two U.S. states joined the case Monday, alleging the company quietly turned a "second price" auction into something closer to a first-price one, and hid it from more than a million advertisers.
