The headline of durable goods orders showed twice the rise the market expected, but the details are poor and it will reinforce the sense of a marked economic slowdown taking place in early Q2. In this regard it is similar to the non-farm payroll figures in which the headline obscured the fact that the work week fell sufficiently to more than offset the net job gain.

To calculate GDP, economists look at shipments for non-defense capital good and exclude aircraft. This component fell 1.5% after a 0.5% gain in March.

The headline 3.3% rise follows the downwardly revised March decline of 5.9%. For the four months of 2013 data, durable goods orders have fallen by a cumulative 2.3%. The April rise was flatted by an 18% jump in commercial aircraft orders. Boeing reported 51 orders compared with 29 in March. Excluding transportation orders, durable orders rose 1.3%, the first gain

Between Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke and Bank of Japan Governor Kuroda, they have unsettled investors and injected volatility into the capital markets that has not been seen for some time. The markets are trying to return to some semblance of stability ahead of the weekend, but the ripple effects are still evident.

The Nikkei initially retraced some of yesterday's steep losses, before selling off more than 3.5% through yesterday's lows and then recovering to finish 0.9% higher. The stock market and the yen have not been the subject of BOJ concern as much as the JGB market. Purchases of another JPY900 bln of JGBs (five year maturities and longer) coupled with yesterday's JPY2 trillion money market injecting helped stabilize the bond market, but the 8 bp day's range shows that volatility remains highs and the market's unsettled.

The essence of Kuroda's challenge is to navigate the critical contradiction at the

The markets are aware that too much free or nearly free money is going to cause trouble. Japan’s equity indices saw it firsthand this week when their main stock market fell -7.9% during one session. All one has to do is look at our central banks – they seem to be single-mindedly focusing on CPI and jobs while totally disregarding the by-product of quantitative easing – asset inflation. Not making decisions any easier is when a central bank, like the Federal Reserve, is having trouble explaining itself.

Monetary policy action has the Bank of Japan and the Fed creating “money monster pits.” Any intraday equity index drop greater than -5% is a stern market reminder that once a specific asset class has been crammed with copious amounts of cash, then the withdrawal of profits from a move towards “less” accommodation signal, like Bernanke hinted to mid-week, can and will always