Since its founding in 1963, Tokyo Electron has been accumulating the technological expertise it builds on to deliver industry-leading production equipment in two product categories: semiconductors and flat panel displays. In a recent statement, the firm’s CEO observed that 2020 was a year marked not...
Bicycle components leader Shimano was founded in 1921, when 26-year-old Shozaburo Shimano borrowed a single lathe and set up a small ironworks shop in Osaka, Japan. Deciding they were the most complex component to produce, Shimano began by making bicycle freewheels, those round spiked wheels...
In this quarter's strategy package, we share our analysis on Japan's Reopening Trade. In the full slide presentation, we cover the following: -Japan seems to have crushed the COVID-19 virus (for now at least) with daily new cases under 400/day. Lockdowns are over and the economy...
In this Mid-Quarter Update, we discuss our analysis on the following topics: -Recent readings on consumer confidence have rolled over. The surveys are validated by the stagnation in real consumer spending in the last few months. -In conjunction with the slowdown in house sales and durable goods...
Pronounced “D-N-A,” this Knowledge Leader was founded in 1999 by three Tokyo entrepreneurs seeking to establish an online auction site. Today the company operates a broad range of mobile and online services including online shopping, mobile auctions, social networks and game platforms. DeNA attributes the...
After two years of devaluation, the Japanese Yen is quite undervalued by our work. In the first chart below, we show the JP Morgan broad and narrow Japanese Yen relative to long-term trendlines. By these measures, the yen is around 25% below the 25 year...
Since euro QE began in earnest at the beginning of March it seems we’ve heard nothing but the positive merits of investing in Europe now that the central bank has finally stepped up to the plate and delivered long overdue unconventional monetary stimulus....
Since the ECB announced its open ended QE program we have seen numerous parallels being drawn with Japan’s amped-up QE program announced in April of 2013, but telegraphed in late 2012. One of those parallels is that like Japanese financial stocks, Europe’s financial stocks should...
Today saw another weak package of weak economic data out of Japan. Some highlights were industrial production turning negative year-on-year, real personal income and consumption expenditure posting another round of deep year-on-year declines, and housing starts which continued to plummet year-on-year....
Global stock investors have continued to purchase Japanese shares despite the relatively lackluster economic statistics coming out of the world’s third largest economy....
Japan’s leading indicator posted a modest gain in June but remains well below the highs set back in January of this year (chart 1). Interestingly though, it’s the less followed coincident indicator that gives us pause....
In what may be the most underreported financial event of the year, Japanese government bond yields just keep falling, and falling and falling. As unbelievable as it sounds, yields have fallen by 20bps, or 27.4%, since the beginning of the year to just 52bps currently....
Whether front running more easing by the BOJ or taking bets on deep valued Japanese stocks, foreign investors are starting to accumulate Japanese equities once again. The first chart below shows the 12-week moving average of foreign stock investment in Japanese equities and the trend...
A lot has been written recently by us and others about the absolute collapse in volatility in financial markets. Whether stocks, bonds, FX or commodities, volatility is making multi-year lows, but the lack of volatility in the JPY/USD cross is among the most stunning of...
The recent sales tax increase in Japan is wreaking havoc with price statistics, making year-over-year comparisons basically useless. To address this problem we have begun to make a very simple adjustment to the published price stats which is to subtract the impact of the tax...
