I suppose we are all supposed to ignore the fact that prior to the tsunami and nuclear incident, Japan was trading far, far off its peak prices in the late 1980s. It's as if the devestation was going to somehow turnaround the past 20+ years of economic struggle. More of the bullshit pump and dump media soundbites that have become the "white noise" of our current trash heap of an economy.
U know what i find interesting. We here time and time again about the economic problems in Japan. Yet, go there and it seems extremely wealthy and well run. Supposedly the debt will kill them. Yet, most Debt (my understanding? don't know true %) is held by Japanese themselves. My relatively uninformed opinion is that Keynesian pump priming and debt (since domestically owned crowds out consumption as well as private capital formation) have crowded out the type of growth that is based in actual consumer preferences and efficient capital allocation. Yet, the Japanese seem to be doing ok. I bet they will outlast the USA and be strong long after we have declined or have fragmented into distinct nations.
Actually there have been so many times Warren Buffet is correct. During year 2008-2009 at the worst time in the financial crisis, a lot of investors feel fear because the market situation. Warren Buffet instead recommends, it is the best time to buy stocks because the price is at the lowest. He is absolutely correct, starting from late 2009 until now, the stocks are still in the bull market stage. If someone buys a lot of stocks during those period, 2 years after the stock market value is very high. Right now, with Japan disaster, Warren Buffet again recommends it is the best time to buy Japanese stocks because the price is cheap. I highly believe he is always right. According to him, it takes time to recover from the earthquake but it will not the Japanese from regaining its market situation as well as the profits.
Well this is an interesting situation. Marc Faber (a commentator who I respect greatly) said last year that going long the nikkei was a strong contrarian play as no-one was interested in it. His reads are good, but his timing is usually off- this disaster could be the catalyst to create an 'irrational rally' and prove him correct. If that is the case, however, it may be too early to buy just yet. We do not know how quickly this will get ironed out.