It has to be said that investing in the Japanese stock market has not been an unalloyed success in recent years. The Nikkei 225 hit almost 40,000 in late 1989. In late 2008 it bottomed out at little more than 7,000; it stands at just shy of 19,000 today.
Japanese companies have suffered from poor standards of corporate governance. There is not much of a culture of shareholder returns, while there have been scandals such as those at Olympus and more recently Toshiba hitting the headlines.
Still, there have been times when overseas investors have weighed in, such as just after the US election last autumn, cycling out of American stocks for whatever reason. Yesterday’s Bank of Japan Tankan survey showed some grounds for optimism,