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Shuhei Abe Benedicte Gravrand, Opalesque Geneva: An Opalesque column for global macro investors.
Shuhei Abe, the founder of SPARX Asset Management, Asia's largest hedge fund manager based in Tokyo, says he has been very bullish since the beginning of this year, as Japan looks like it is ending its long-term deflationary super-cycle.
Coming out of a bubble
The cycle started with the Japanese asset price bubble, an economic bubble in the late 80-early 90s in which real estate and stock prices were greatly inflated. The aftermath of that bubble saw asset prices continuing to fall, leading to what was called the "lost decade". The Nikkei 225 started plummeting in December 1989 from a high of almost 40,000 to lose 64% of its value in 32 months. Although showing many ups and down during the next few years, it never got back to this peak and lost a total of 82% from that day till October 2008. After that, the index was kept down by the financial crisis, the March 2011 earthquake and other events. But Shinzo Abe came to power, and the index climbed up again in December 2012.
"In 2010, I felt a bit positive on the market, but unfortunately, my optimism was not supported by reality," said SPARX' Shuhei Abe. "We had the Tohoku earthquake and the nuclear plant meltdown, and that year through to the beginning of 2012, we ha...................... To view our full article Click here
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