Japan – Winners & Losers #11: 30th May – 19th June: – Winners: ‘Timeless Style, Office Furniture’ – Loser: ‘Y100 Stores, White Collar Workers’ The following companies are included to [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #10: 16th April – 29th May: – Winners: Toast lovers, Improving Japanese Shareholder Returns, Image Sensors – Loser: Brown hair 1. Winner: Toast lovers2. Winner: [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #9: 12th April – 15th May: Winners: ‘System Integrators & Yoshinoya’ / Winners & Losers: ‘Masa & Rakuten’ 1. Winner: System Integrators 2. Winner & [...]

Is the wheel of fortune starting to turn in favour of Japanese billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani & his burgeoning online empire, Rakuten (4755)? It was a question that seemed relevant again at [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #8: 28th March – 11th April: Winners: Dan Loeb & UUUM. ; Losers: Brokers & The Japanese Stock Market. 1. Loser: Brokers 2. Winner: Dan Loeb 3. Loser: The [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #7: 13th – 27th March: Non-Smokers, Carlos Ghosn. ; Losers: AI & Robots. ; Winner & Loser: English. 1. Loser: AI & Robots 2. Winner & Loser: English [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #6: 6th – 12th March: Winners: Wellness, Private equity; Losers: Japan’s economy, Technology. 1. Winner: Wellness 2. Loser: Japan’s economy 3. Loser: Technology 4. [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #5: 25th Feb – 5th March: 25th Feb – 5th March: Major developers, Activist investors, Carlos Ghosn; Losers: CVS customers. 1. Winner: Major developers 2. Loser: CVS [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #4: 11th – 15th February: Japanese workers & staffing companies. Losers: the A380 & sushi 1. Winner: Japanese workers 2. Winner: Staffing companies 3. Loser: [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #3: 4th – 9th February: Winners: Activist funds & Kansai Airport; Losers: The GPIF, Yusaku Maezawa & Japanese consumers. 1. Loser: GPIF 2. Winner: Activist [...]

Japan – Winners & Losers #2: 28th January – 3rd February. This week’s winners include 5G, Vloggers & Daiwabo, whilst digital cameras wear the losers’ hat. 1. Winner: 5G 2. Loser: Digital [...]

News that 19-year-old beauty influencer James Charles, whose make-up-focused YouTube channel boasts 13.9m subscribers, caused a 4 ½ hour traffic jam after 8,000 fans crowded to see his appearance [...]

Japan Winners & Losers 21st – 25th Jan 2019. This week’s winners include Innovative Japan, Financial services & Japanese commuters. The losers? The smartphone supply chain & adult [...]

There is a horrible moment in most British football managers’ careers when results turn against them, pressure builds & previously supportive fans lose the faith. It’s at this point decisions [...]

The week following Carlos Ghosn’s arrest has seen a few more entries added to Japan’s growing list of 2018 corporate governance scandals including: Olympus (7733): sued over alleged illegal [...]

By all accounts the inclusion of a 2MP camera on the original iPhone in 2007 was something of an afterthought, an additional feature that was neither here nor there & certainly not a major [...]

Fans of 70’s & 80’s soap operas Dallas & Dynasty switched on to savour the conflict between the Ewing & Barnes families & watch Alexis (aka a smouldering Joan Collins) run rings [...]

This from a report we published on a Japanese plant engineering firm in late 2017: ‘Weak 1H earnings continued to reflect a poor FY 3/17 orders environment, when the low oil price was accompanied [...]

In the final analysis, years from now, history may relate that the easiest way of understanding MiFID was to appreciate that it rhymed with triffid. From Wikipedia: ‘The Day of the Triffids is a [...]

The iPhone X was released at the end of last year. Would the hype, the OLED screen, the face recognition & the animojis, justify the 4 figure price? Answer: whilst the phone is undoubtedly [...]

A recent half-term trip to Meribel got me thinking about the unlikely links between skiing & Japanese equities. Case in point was the journey made from Col de la Loze (altitude 2,305m) to [...]

The inaugural FT 1000 High-Growth Asia-Pacific companies list is out & makes for interesting reading from a Japanese perspective. The list ranks the 1,000 fastest growing companies by [...]

The global account receivable guarantee market is highly specialist, allowing businesses to protect themselves against the risk of potential client bankruptcy. In Europe approx. 15% of account [...]

Point 10 of Charlie Munger’s 10-point investing checklist is ‘Filter out the minutiae & focus on the obvious’. Q: have technology investors recognised the obvious in [...]

19 days since the official advent of MIFID II – what do we know? The conclusion from the embers of Koji Nagai’s (Nomura’s CEO) interview with the FT last week was that the long [...]

These are extraordinary times at Don Quijote, Japan’s leading discount retail operator, which finds itself the retail destination of choice for growing legions of inbound tourists, not [...]