While price indices may indicate the Japanese stock market is stagnant, there are many individual companies that outperform. Even skeptics who doubt the ability for reform and growth in Japan cannot deny there are individual corporations that possess adaptability and growth as well as globally recognized corporate value.
Furthermore, although markets may not be trending higher, current fluctuations in stock prices present potential investment opportunities. It is possible to execute trades on the highly developed Japanese stock market with few transaction costs, thereby providing beneficial conditions in a volatile market.
Finance mechanisms in Japan are bank-centered, which makes them different from the capital market-centered models in the U.S. and U.K. This lag in capital marketization, or what is referred to as “the backwardness of Japanese financing,” may also be deeply related to the stagnation in the country’s stock markets. However, even though Japan may seem to lack market principle sophistication, upon closer inspection there are investment opportunities within this unique financial structure.
It is safe to say there is investment independence from of the financing functions of the Japanese banks. If anything, investment opportunities should include engaging banks, thereby using the related banking functions as a supplement. This is where investment fields directly linked to banking functions such as asset finance, mezzanine, distressed, direct financing and niche corporate bond markets are developing.
It is short-sighted to believe there are no investment opportunities in such an established economy as Japan. Such is the purpose of this website: by taking a unique perspective and conducting a comprehensive analysis of the facts in Japan, new investment opportunities will become evident to global investors.