Shiozumi: Japan's bull market will last until 2020

Legg Mason manager says second stage of recovery reached

Hideo Shiozumi, manager of the £327m Legg Mason IF Japan Equity fund, expects the bull market in Japan to continue for another five years, but does not see the Nikkei scaling its previous all-time high.

The manager told Investment Week the Japanese equity market is only in the second stage of its multi-year recovery, and will enter the third stage by 2017, and the final leg in 2019-2020. Japan: A new cult of entrepreneurship However, he does not see the market ever recovering to the peak of 40,000 it reached during the rally of the late 1980s. “The third stage of the recovery will come when the inflation target of 2% will be achieved, and the last stage will be when we see 3% nominal (or 2% real) GDP growth,” the manager said. “The bull market will probably finish in 2020.” How...