July 09, 2024 at 01:40PM
The Nikkei 225 had a big day today, rising nearly 2% to an all-time high. It’s a sign of an ongoing breakout after finally cracking the 1990 high earlier this year.
Blackrock Investment Institute says there is more to come, calling long Japanese equities one of its highest conviction equity ideas.
One area they are particularly interested in are Japanese healthcare stocks, and recently wrote:
Take demographics. Japan’s aging population and shrinking workforce
has been well documented. It is the world’s oldest population, with a
median age above 48 years compared to the global average of 30 years,
according to 2022 United Nations World Population Prospects. The
government expects Japan will have one elderly person for every
working-age individual by 2060. Japan’s shrinking labor force has
contributed to economic stagnation – exacerbated by the bursting of the
asset price bubble of the late 1980s.
Yet markets have been slow to price these structural shifts. Over the
last three decades, the value of Japan’s healthcare stocks relative to
the broader market have risen broadly in step with the growth of its
retired population, as measured by the dependency ratio – evidence that
structural shifts are not always priced by markets, even if they can be
anticipated years in advance. See the chart below. With the dependency
ratio expected to rise further, we think the healthcare sector can keep
outperforming.
Warren Buffett has also made some large bets in Japanese trading houses.
A warning though, yen weakness has been a big part of the outperformance of Japanese equities. Should USD/JPY turn lower, Japanese stocks could come under pressure.
This article was written by Adam Button at www.forexlive.com.
