Japan's current account surplus widens, more surpluses in oil exporters, but no more M3 in US

Japan's current account surplus widened in September.

Japan's September current account surplus unexpectedly widened as exports rose to a record, reinforcing expectations that growth in the world's second- largest economy will accelerate.

The surplus increased 6.5 percent to 1.86 trillion yen ($15.8 billion) compared with the same month a year ago, the Ministry of Finance said in a report released in Tokyo today. Exports climbed 8.9 percent from a year earlier.

However, Brad Setser reminds us that it is no longer just countries like Japan or China that have large current account surpluses.

[T]he really big current account surpluses were found in the oil exporting countries, not in Asia. Russia's q3 trade surplus was nearly $35 billion; judging from that data point, the combined current account surplus of the major oil exporters probably came in at well over $100 billion in the third quarter.

Setser griped that much of the assets purchased by gulf countries with petrodollars are "bloody hard to track". However, soon, some of that lack of transparency will extend to US data as well. The Prudent Investor and The Big Picture bring news that the Federal Reserve System will cease publication of the M3 monetary aggregate.