Note To Self: Buy Japan!

The TOPIX is up 11.6% since Cassandra took "the other side" of the esteemed KBC Strategist Jonathon Allum's late November directional reticence with regards to Japanese stocks. Admittedly, it's only 4% in Euro terms, but there are ways around that, and I'll leave it to one's imagination as to whether I would or wouldn't have hedged the currency.

But today, against the odds of the summer doldrums, and near-parabolic returns across the sea in Shanghai, I remain optimistic on Japanese shares in aggregate, and positively enthusiastic about certain pockets where value and the lack of pessimism coincide. Many skeptics remain. But the frank reality is until Global Liquidity (and I use capitals for good reason) is throttled or fully-choked, the bias of the index will remain positive, even in dollar and Euro terms. As such, I can envisage a 50-stock portfolio that is, in market parlance, "a double" over the next 12-months, which is a bold prediction (in light of Cassandra's unrequited US correction call).