Gekko

ONE of the few victories I had this year in my losing war against the paper flooding into my office was over brokerage-house recommendations for Japanese “exporter” stocks. These all wound up in the recycling bag. The brokers have had a hard time finding ways to add value, i.e., commissions, and this one seemed like a no-brainer. As with most no-brainers, this one is going to turn out to be a mess.

The idea was that while the Japanese stock market as a whole, as measured by the Nikkei 225, was going nowhere, the devaluation of the yen and corporate restructuring would lead to huge gains in the major Japanese exporters such as Sony, Hitachi, Toyota, etc. Once again, though, the investors have turned out to be hostages to the assumptions of securities analysts so marvelously focused that they had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world.

JD

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John Dizard

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ONE of the few victories I had this year in my losing war against the paper flooding into my office was over brokerage-house recommendations for Japanese “exporter” stocks. These all wound up in the recycling bag. The brokers have had a hard time finding ways to add value, i.e., commissions, and this one seemed like a no-brainer. As with most no-brainers, this one is going to turn out to be a mess.

The idea was that while the Japanese stock market as a whole, as measured by the Nikkei 225, was going nowhere, the devaluation of the yen and corporate restructuring would lead to huge gains in the major Japanese exporters such as Sony, Hitachi, Toyota, etc. Once again, though, the investors have turned out to be hostages to the assumptions of securities analysts so marvelously focused that they had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world.