It’s finally time to buy Japan

“BUY my Abenomics,” begged Japan’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe in 2013 when he visited the trading floor at the New York Stock Exchange, rang the bell and called out his home stock market. Ten years on, it looks like investors finally are.

I say finally because while the market did bottom in Abe’s time (he followed up his speech with various corporate governance reforms that began to change sentiment), it did not exactly catch fire. By the end of last year, the Tokyo Stock Price Index was up only 61 per cent since the big bell ring. The S&P 500 gained 127 per cent in the same time frame (even after an utterly miserable 2022).

This year, however, everything looks a little different. Japan’s Topix is up more than 20 per cent year to date. The S&P 500 is up by just under 15 per cent. Japan is also catching up over longer time periods. Over five years, you would have made 57 per cent in the US, but a still-solid 28 per cent in Japan.