News & Insights

After several years of Japanese small cap underperformance against their large cap peers, small cap stocks have started to play catch-up from Q2 2023. In this article, Senior Investment Director Akimichi Oi reviews the historical relationship between the relative valuation and performance of small caps against large caps; and displays how its outperformance is likely to continue given the relative undervaluation of small caps.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index recently reached its highest level since August 1990 on the back of foreign buying and locally driven corporate governance improvements. As such investors’ views on Japanese equities have been changing. In this article, we would like to introduce the three reasons the Nikkei 225 index has jumped up recently.

SuMi's Coffee Break Column: Satoshi Marui, Chief Portfolio Manager of the Japan Small Cap Strategy, talks VTubers, Animation and Japanese cultural exports in this piece on how digitalisation is paving the way for Japanese content in our increasingly globalised world.

SuMi's Coffee Break Column: Katsunori Ogawa, Chief Portfolio Manager of the Sakigake High Alpha Strategy, explores the promising economic opportunities in sight as the number of foreign visitors to Japan begins to recover following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chief Strategist Hiroyuki Ueno explores the trend of increasing wages in Japan and the challenge this poses for small and medium-sized enterprises.

The Bank of Japan's upcoming Monetary Policy Meeting will be the last of Governor Kuroda's tenure before Kazuo Ueda takes over his position as the new governor. In this article, Senior Strategist Katsutoshi Inadome explores the current environment of the bond market and the outlook for Japan's monetary policy.

We are convinced that an investor could expect to benefit from investing in regional factor strategies, at least in Japan, that reflect the specific nature of each region instead of global factor indices aiming to benefit from factor premium with a uniform set of factors.

What direction will the new Bank of Japan (BOJ) Governor, Kazuo Ueda, take in regards to Japan's long-standing ultra-loose monetary policy? Katsunori Ogawa, Chief Portfolio Manager of the Sakigake High Alpha Fund, shares his thoughts.

Chief Strategist Hiroyuki Ueno shares his outlook for the Japanese economy, monetary policy and markets in 2023.

In this article, Tatsuya Suzuki, Chief Portfolio Manager of the Japan Quality Growth Strategy, is interviewed by Akimichi Oi, Senior Investment Director, on the positive changes emerging in Japanese companies.