patrick.net

I was long Japan before the earthquake and bought in again afterwards. I'm long because any collapse in the bond market is going to cause an exit out of bonds and into equities. The fact that Japan will probably have to monetize debt sooner from this disaster only ensures this outcome comes sooner. Japan's stocks will go up in the face of a crisis, not because of a strong economy.

>Btw, what kind of power wastage goes on in Japan? Are they pretty conservative in their usage, or if push came to shove, could they reduce their electrical usage? Eg Compact florescent vs incandescent, does anyone use them? Heating/Cooking? Insulation of homes?

They are wasteful with the big neon signs (even though I like them). Even worse, many offices usually waste energy via the A/C. Up to 78 F in the winter and down to 72 F in the summer in many cases (should be the opposite). Home insulation is poor or non-existant. One bright note is that Japan is on the cutting edge of light emitting diode developlment and use (low energy).

Somewhat related article:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/What-Does-Japan-Teach-Us-wscheats-426663212.html?x=0&.v=1

>In 2009, Japan started offering an incentive for Nisei to leave the country. These Nissei, mostly from South America (esp. Brazil) did mostly the lower paying, dirty and dangerous jobs. Like Construction, Janitorial Work, Disaster Cleanup, etc.

Correct.

@thunderlips11:

>Uyoku Groups have kept WW2 war crimes out of Japanese Textbooks for 60 years. And there are millions of Japanese who share these sentiments, even if they are not formal members or even remotely sympathizers with the Ultraright.

Doing my best to teach the truth on WW2 but this is another topic for another thread....

One thing for sure. The Nikkei was one of the worst long-term investments you could have made in 1989.
The Nikkei 225 Hit its all-time of ¥38,957.00 on December 29th, 1989. If you had bought then, your investment would *still* be down over 75% over 21 years later! Any lesson to be learned here?

Well as for energy, it sounds like if push came to shove they could modify their habits a bit and make up for some of the lost power. At least enough to keep their offices/factories online. Wearing a sweater indoors for the next couple of months or doing without a/c.

As far as money, they don't need all that much 500B over 5 years. It's a huge sum for sure. But they've got close to 1T in US treasury debt. They can print their own money. Their debt might be high, but obviously they can support that level, adding a bit more to it to the tune of 100B every year for 5 more years isn't going to be a tipping point for them, likely the last decade + the next 5 years of natural building of that debt will be far worse.

And money will flow in from overseas as family from abroad helps out. I know of several people who did this during the last disaster.

We invested some money into TM a bit to diversify for a long term. Hopefully it works out.

I bought Toyota stock last year (after it had been hammered down)... the only individual company stock I had bought in years!

American in Japan says

One thing for sure. The Nikkei was one of the worst long-term investments you could have made in 1989.

The Nikkei 225 Hit its all-time of ¥38,957.00 on December 29th, 1989. If you had bought then, your investment would *still* be down over 75% over 21 years later! Any lesson to be learned here?

What most investors fail to realize is that the lifetime of a bear market rarely lasts more than 20 years. Getting in on Japan, you are buying low. 10 years from now, it will be looked upon as a no brainer.

American in Japan says

The Nikkei 225 Hit its all-time of ¥38,957.00 on December 29th, 1989. If you had bought then, your investment would *still* be down over 75% over 21 years later! Any lesson to be learned here?

One lesson is that it's probably a bad idea to buy an index whose P/E ratio is nearly 80.

American in Japan says

They are wasteful with the big neon signs (even though I like them). Even worse, many offices usually waste energy via the A/C. Up to 78 F in the winter and down to 72 F in the summer in many cases (should be the opposite). Home insulation is poor or non-existant. One bright note is that Japan is on the cutting edge of light emitting diode developlment and use (low energy).

Home insulation is poor to non-existant in Japan? How did that happen?

I think a lot of people are going to miss the bottom fishing opportunity in Japan. Beark market bottoms typically come when everyone least expects it. I called for the bottom a few months ago. Obviously, the Earthquake may have shifted expectations but I do believe a real bottom is somewhere in the near future.

for us the difficulty in investing into Japanese markets comes from the fact that we know too little about Japanese companies. TM is the only one we know specifically, which is why we invested into their stock. But anything else out there would be basically a gamble for us.

Maybe AmericanInJapan can mention which products in Japan are flying off the shelves.

@ChrisLA

LoL!

Potassium iodine, mineral water (and a few weeks ago AA batteries).

@thunderlips11

Agreed.

@zzyzzx

Insulation- electricity costs here are among the world's highest (even before 3-11). I chalk it up to the (often) illogical group think here.

I understand better now with Toyota. It seems that some of the parts are produced only in Japan, so this factor is the "rate determinig step" to have more cars completed in the US assembly plants.

Anyway, I rarely buy into individual companies anymore, but rather (fixed) indexes. The problem for me is I realized that not only can individual companies fail the "regular way" (bad business model, etc.) but sometimes even with a successful company, the president can take the money ut of the company and run.

Good reading here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/markets/8383373/Japan-earthquake-The-companies-most-affected-by-the-disaster.html#

I still hold EWJ, but I have reduced my position.

Has anyone bought EWJ since the disaster?

Another view:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/262184-japan-is-not-a-bargain?source=yahoo

I'm coming to conclusion that it's just better to buy individual stocks, seems a lot cheaper per trade.

ETFs can be bought like individual company stocks. (unless I am missing something here...)

American in Japan says

ETFs can be bought like individual company stocks. (unless I am missing something here…)

sorry, I wasn't specific. I meant cheaper than mutual funds as cost per trade, etc...

American in Japan says

@ChrisLA

LoL!

Potassium iodine, mineral water (and a few weeks ago AA batteries).

You are right, I'm trying bit too early. KI is not exactly a great long term investment.

>sorry, I wasn’t specific. I meant cheaper than mutual funds as cost per trade, etc…

Mutual funds generally have higher "management fees" then fixed annuities or ETFs,
I could be wrong if I say all mutual funds, but research the costs.

EWJ climbing up again the last 4 days…

For the record, in the past month, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, and James Grant have all suggested there is huge value to be had in Japanese equities.

A graph of the Nikkei 225 (in yen). It is still well below its 1989 high (around 1985 levels):

I'm not sure which companies and sectors to invest into here. outside of TM I'm pretty much in the dark.

There are ETFs in which you can invest in the market as a whole…
EWJ

Lol! I know what you mean!

Interesting news this evening...

http://blogs.barrons.com/focusonfunds/2011/07/05/etf-investors-pulling-away-from-china-jumping-into-brazil-japan/?mod=yahoobarrons

EWJ is at 10.60 now.