The lesson of today's Daily Reckoning is that if you want to blow a massive asset bubble in order to make people feel wealthier, you had better do it in the real estate market and not the stock market. Liquidity driven gains in the stock market are bigger, faster, and more impressive in the short term. But they're also easy come, easy go.

Look no further than the 22% fall in Japan's Nikkei since it peaked in late May. That's an impressive little bear market in such a short time. But then, the Japanese are famous for their efficiency. And yesterday was no different. The Nikkei 225 fell 6.5% for the session.

The index is now back to its early April lows. In other words, it's back to where it was before new Bank of Japan head honcho Haruhiko Kuroda unveiled his grand plans for ending deflation in Japan. All his hot air succeeded in doing was pumping up stocks until all the air whooshed out in a few short weeks.

Whoosh!

Source: StockCharts
It's a bear market in Japan. It's merely a bear cub market in Australia, at least for now. The S&P/ASX 200 index is down 10.6% since May 14th. It's erased nearly all of its gains since starting the year at 4648. Mind you it's still up 666.6 points since June 1st of 2012. That's a 16.54% gain in just over twelve months...

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