Japan Market Daily | Kabutaro & Friends

On May 16, 2026, while major markets were closed for the weekend, signs of a sharp economic slowdown in the Eurozone emerged due to the ongoing Middle East crisis. Qatar National Bank (QNB) reported that the Eurozone Composite PMI plunged to 48.6 points, driven by surging energy costs and shipping disruptions that severely impacted the vital services sector, dragging business confidence to its lowest level since late 2022. Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs also announced that while Q1 real GDP grew slightly stronger than expected at 0.3 percent quarter-on-quarter, indicators point to a clear economic dampening in Q2 amid persistent supply chain bottlenecks. In Russia, despite President Putin's positive remarks on domestic figures, an ISW analysis revealed that the war economy is sliding into stagflation, with the federal budget deficit surging to 78.4 billion dollars in the first four months—exceeding the annual planned level by over 150 percent. Meanwhile, commodity markets saw a sharp drop as global spot silver prices plummeted by over 8 percent at the close of Friday's trade.