{"id":144460,"date":"2010-01-06T05:43:00","date_gmt":"2010-01-06T10:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/four-reasons-why-japan-could-be-the-mother-of-all-contrarian-bets-in-2010-2010-1"},"modified":"2010-01-06T05:43:00","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T10:43:00","slug":"four-reasons-why-japan-could-be-the-mother-of-all-contrarian-bets-in-2010","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/144460","title":{"rendered":"Four Reasons Why Japan Could Be The Mother Of All Contrarian Bets In 2010"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>(This guest post originally appeared at the <a href=\"http:\/\/pragcap.com\/4-reasons-why-japan-is-a-good-2010-contrarian-bet\">author&#8217;s blog<\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>No market has suffered more during the Fed&rsquo;s boom bust cycle than Japan.&nbsp; The timing of their own credit crisis in the early 90&rsquo;s couldn&rsquo;t have come at a worse time &ndash; just before the great innovative boom of the internet age.&nbsp; To make matters worse, they didn&rsquo;t begin to grasp the complexity of their problems until the U.S. and the rest of the world was slipping into a great recession of their own (<a href=\"http:\/\/pragcap.com\/20-year-bear-market\" >please see here for our opinion on the current outlook for the U.S. deflationary battle<\/a>).&nbsp; And then there is the great recession of 2008.&nbsp;&nbsp; But after years of abysmal market returns Japan might be the contrarian of all contrarian bets.&nbsp; Here&rsquo;s why:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Japan is hands down the most hated market in the globe.&nbsp;&nbsp; <a href=\"http:\/\/pragcap.com\/the-ultimate-guide-to-2010-investment-predictions-and-outlooks\" >The consensus in our 2010 investment guide was underweight Japan<\/a>.&nbsp; If there is no one left to dislike Japan then there is a strong likelihood that Japan&rsquo;s market will melt higher as the sellers have already positioned themselves accordingly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>The Japanese market is cheap on a relative basis.&nbsp; It now sells at just 1.4 times book value compared to 2.2 times emerging markets and 3.2 times China.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Contrary to popular opinion, the debt problems in Japan could continue to serve as a near-term positive catalyst.&nbsp; Any potential problems funding their deficit is likely to result in further quantitative easing which would be highly beneficial to stocks in the short-term.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Perhaps most importantly, the Yen now looks overvalued compared to the dollar and the Euro.&nbsp; In Japan&rsquo;s export driven economy this could continue to benefit the Japanese economy.&nbsp; The risk likely remains to the upside as we believe the Fed will be forced to act in H2 and could result in a much more robust dollar than many currently presume.&nbsp; Any downside in the Yen would be positive for stocks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/pragcap.com\/\"><strong>Read more market commentary at The Pragmatic Capitalist &#8212; &gt;<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/four-reasons-why-japan-could-be-the-mother-of-all-contrarian-bets-in-2010-2010-1#comments\">Join the conversation about this story &#187;<\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>See Also:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/marc-faber-avoid-the-us-disaster-buy-wheat-sugar-natural-gas-and-japan-in-2010-2009-12\">Marc Faber: Avoid The US Disaster, Buy Wheat, Sugar, Natural Gas, And Japan In 2010<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/japan-finally-lets-its-ill-finance-minister-resign-2010-1\">Japan Finally Lets Its Sick Finance Minister Resign<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/global-bear-rally-of-2009-will-end-as-japans-hyperinflation-rips-economy-to-pieces-2010-1\">Global Bear Rally Of 2009 Will End As Japan&#8217;s Hyperinflation Rips Economy To Pieces<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheMoneyGame\/~4\/56bQwiyb4BY\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(This guest post originally appeared at the author&#8217;s blog) No market has suffered more during the Fed&rsquo;s boom bust cycle than Japan.&nbsp; The timing of their own credit crisis in the early 90&rsquo;s couldn&rsquo;t have come at a worse time &ndash; just before the great innovative boom of the internet age.&nbsp; To make matters worse, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-144460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144460\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}