Japan stunned investors with news that its GDP fell in the third quarter, the second quarter of contraction in a row that some say is the beginning of a recession. Annualized growth for the country is at -1.6% for now, and many economists believe that rising prices is not getting Japanese consumers to spend money.

The problem is sales tax, which rose from 5% to 8% in April, and which was timed almost perfectly with the beginning of the contraction. Japan has tried to reinvent itself several times, and the most recent effort to become a consumer-driven powerhouse is not working. Investors were spooked, and the Nikkei 225 fell almost 3% on the news. Japanese stocks have since recovered.

Understanding the monetary and macroeconomic conditions of the country are essential for traders, who stand to make a substantial amount of money if they bet on the right trend in 2015. The controversy that creates the speculation opportunity can be summed up in this way:

The bear view: Japan has an aging population, high debt, stagnant wages, and low price growth after 15 years of deflation. Nothing can save the Japanese economy as its exporters fail to compete with the rest of the world. Rising debt levels and overly aggressive QE will inevitably cause inflation, which will kill the economy further. Japan is doomed, so short its debt, its currency, and its equities. There are several ETFs to this end (EWJ, DFJ, SCJ, NKY, ITF, JSC)

The bull view: QE will cause equities to rise. We saw this happen in 2013 in the U.S. and Japan, and it will happen again. The Nikkei 225 has more than doubled since it began its aggressive QE procedures. More growth is on the way. However, QE cannot necessarily fix fundamentals, and Japan’s reliance on imports, its shrinking population, and lack of competitiveness will stunt national growth. Therefore, the Japanese yen is likely to weaken as stocks rise. A hedged equity strategy is best here (DXJ, HEWJ, DXJS).

Of course, there are more than these two views, but these are the primary arguments being made about Japan. The bet on Japan is largely being seen as a bet on money flows, and the idea that aggressive monetary expansion will cause a sticker price rise on equities, regardless of fundamentals. Again, this is what happened in 2013, which is why long/short underperformed as a strategy, and the growing skepticism of hedge fund strategies may be itself a reflection of how the money policy of QE has changed market expectations. If this is the case, the long/short strategy may become an opportunity in times of no QE, when people invest on a broader market rise but the reality is that fundamentals become much more important.

That reality may hit the U.S. in 2015 if QE is not extended, but that reality does not seem to be hitting Japan quite yet. However, the global interconnectivity of markets may mean that a rise in total yen may not only cause Japanese stocks to rise, but could also cause U.S. stocks to rise as well. The more indirect bet on Japan’s mix of recession and aggressive monetary policy would then be to invest in U.S. stocks and wait for the yen to flow to American equities.

For now, these are the broader macroeconomic themes that investors are looking at for 2015. The additional question of just how much and how effective the ECB’s QE program is an additional question mark, and it will inevitably be another factor in how to allocate portfolios to stocks, and how much to short, in the coming year. With Japan, the ECB, and the Fed, it seems that macro investing is by no means over.