Investing in Japan

Value investors will still find excellent valuations in Japan despite the market’s gains over the past several weeks. As I say again, in my latest exclusive at Seeking Alpha, “Investing in Japan Beyond the Platitudes,” the most interesting opportunities are in domestic-demand small/mid-cap companies. I’ve received a number of messages asking about WisdomTree’s hedged Japan [...]

Quite a rally in Japan over the past six weeks. I’m happy there’s some excitement about Japanese stocks but at the same time I’m worried the hot money and sentiment will prove truly ephemeral. Institutional investors in the U.S. are mostly one-trick ponies when it comes to Japan. I discuss this in my book. Retail [...]

I recently wrote an article published exclusively on Seeking Alpha, entitled, “Why GE’s Buyback is a Raw Deal for Shareholders.” Share repurchase programs are trumpeted out and rarely questioned.  I believe that many, but not enough, investors understand that buybacks can be largely self-serving and hardly in shareowners’ best interests. I encourage you to read [...]

Longtime Japan observer, Jesper Koll, currently head of equity research at JPMorgan Japan, argues Japan is in a “demographic sweet spot.” In a recent interview with Bloomberg (see video clip queued from 2:35 mark*) he made some key points rarely shared when Japan’s demographics are discussed, one being that wage deflation is ending. His focus [...]

Barron’s Kopin Tan writes about the Nikkei’s reversal this year in the International Trader – Asia section (first half discusses Prada’s valuation) of this week’s edition. After being the best-performing market in Q1, the Nikkei has slid 16% since its peak in late March. The vicissitudes of the market should not weigh on value investors. [...]

The topic of corporate governance excites few, far fewer than it should, and of course much fewer than say a big (but ultimately boring) story like Facebook’s (FB) pending IPO; though even Facebook and also Google (GOOG) have some newsworthy corporate governance issues. Corporate governance is only hot when there is an Aubrey McClendon type [...]

General Electric’s (GE) annual shareowner meeting is tomorrow (Weds.) in Detroit. I urge those that haven’t voted to do so as soon as possible today to ensure votes are counted. To help make readers better informed and to generate discussion, I prepared two write-ups surrounding GE’s annual meeting: (1) a review of each item for [...]

First, I want to thank readers that have purchased my book, Investing in Japan. So far the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and I’m very appreciate of the reader reviews, including by: Nate Tobik, a value investor (with positions in Japanese net-nets) of the blog Oddball Stocks, whose review is entitled, “A must read for anyone [...]

I have heard from fellow value investor Jacob Wolinsky (of ValueWalk) that Paul Sonkin, manager of the Hummingbird Value hedge fund, believes proxy statements are the most underrated of statements; Wolinsky perhaps inspired by that says rather than refer to the 3 key financial statements it really should be “4.” I couldn’t agree more. As [...]

Internet Initiative Japan (IIJI) (3774) is being overlooked by the market of late after a run last year to a multi-year high. Poised for a record fiscal year (which ends in a couple weeks), no doubt 2012 – 2013 will prove to be even more impressive. See my write-up, which appears as an exclusive premium [...]