Since you mentioned we won't live till then, I was surprised. My earlier impression was you are between 30-35. I think you/we can definitely benefit from this demographic change in the 3rd largest economy. So this will be the state of Japanese demographics in 2060, which means markets will start pricing it in a meaningful way from 2030 onwards. It means if you want, you can take a long term secular un-leveraged position around 2030 and sit on it for 20 years, adding/re-balancing every 2-3 years. In year 2030, you will near 50 and that is a good age to take unleveraged secular long term less stressful positions. The hot stocks of Japanese economy that come to mind would be old-age care companies, and tourism companies catering to older people as a primary market, medical companies, old age beauty products companies etc. You also might want to be short those Japanese companies whose primary target audience is younger crowd, like companies developing new gadgets and gizmos, companies involved in outdoor risky sports, real estate firms etc. Actually, these Japanese stocks will offer a very useful uncorrelated addition to all the usual European/US stocks and emerging market ETFs in your portfolio. I don't know how yen will react to this demographic change over the long run. But playing Japanese stocks to profit from this long term demographic shift is definitely something that I would explore in future. Regards,
Yes, I certainly agree there is a lot going on there that is worth more investigation particulary as you mention it being uncorellated to many other parts of the world in a way. The we won't be alive anymore remark was just being ironic but also ment as an obvious warning to predictions 20-30 years in the future let alone longer out. Maybe we only have oil for 40 more years but in 10 years science will invent something making the use of oil unnecessary one can only guess. The aging issue and dropping population issue is not an exclusive Japanese problem ofcourse. I believe Russia suffers the same fate and Western Europe to a lesser extent as well? But ofcourse the Japanese debtload and specific fundamentals of it add to the image. But anyways, I fully agree with your assesment otherwise of it being wise in years to come to add exposure to the Japanese stockmarket. Cheers.
I'm not so sure about Russia. Last time I checked life expectancy for russian men was 60years only - it always makes me uneasy to think about that - especially the couple of times I ended up by the finnish russian border, thinking that the life expectancy is almost 20 years different according to which side of the fence people stand.
Actually I haven't (I hardly ever drink or hang out in bars) but I remember how the locals were drunk in Helsinki in the movie A Night on Earth from Jim jarmush. I guess they tend to fight the cold and darkness with alcohol, but they definetely overlive the russians by a wide margin, especially the men. http://www.indexmundi.com/finland/life_expectancy_at_birth.html http://www.indexmundi.com/russia/life_expectancy_at_birth.html