It’s no surprise that Japanese shares have been hammered lately. Japan is the worst performing major market so far in 2014 and the Nikkei is down about 10% from its recent high in USD terms. That, however, is not the entire story. When we categorize stocks into performance buckets (i.e. how many stocks are with 0-10% from their 1 year high, how many stocks are within 10-20% of their 1 year high, etc.) we find that 41% of Japanese stocks are more than 20% from their 1 year high. The next closest country is Hong Kong with 18% of it’s stocks in a bear market. It’s becoming apparent that the BOJ will think it has to do more to keep Japanese shares afloat.