Having briefly flirted with a period of recovery, Japanese equities remain one of the big underperformers over the last 20 years, writes Daniel Murray, chief economist at EFG Asset Management.
A meaningful recovery has long been forecast but never really come to fruition. Here are the five key areas that will affect Japan's prospects over the coming years: 1. The importance of demographics Over the past ten years (40 quarters) Japan has experienced 17 quarters of negative real GDP growth, 10 of which have been in the past five years. A difficult macro environment has been reflected in volatile market conditions. Weak output trends are associated with weak demographic trends. According to the US Census Bureau, Japan's population peaked in 2008 at 127.8 million and has been...
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