The Japanese economy has been stagnant for the last thirty years. The Nikei 225 index was briefly above 38,000 in 1989; today it is about 20,000. Unsurprisingly my previous forays into Japanese stocks have not ended well. However, when I wrote recently about Emerging Markets a reader commented that Japan was worth a look too.
Coincidentally, in a Spectator article about investment trusts, Andrew M Brown recommends Baillie Gifford Japan and Aberdeen Japan. The former does not pay a dividend but is up 35% this year, so maybe a bit toppy, also it is at a 2.5% premium to Net Asset Value.
Aberdeen Japan has not performed so well, pays a tiny dividend and is at a 14% discount to NAV. I think at a time when stock markets in the west look fully valued that it may be a prudent diversification and I will dip a toe in. I will also watch for an opportunity to switch from Aberdeen to Baillie Gifford if the latter’s premium disappears.
Otherwise I have done precisely no trading recently except for automatically reinvesting dividends in my ISA. Caledonia have been doing well. Their discount has narrowed to 15% and they are paying a £1 special dividend out of the proceeds of a sale of a caravan park. I am going to check up on another of their holdings before lunch – drinks at the Sloane Club.
Finally, to please Richard D North and other Rattigan admirers (of which I am one, no matter what I have written) here is an extract from an address written by William Douglas-Home and read by Donald Sinden at his memorial service at St Martin-in-the Fields in February 1978.
And it is by these works – let us remember – and not by the memory of having known and loved him, that posterity will judge him. And that judgement, I submit without much fear of contradiction, will be that gentleness, inherent in his character, enabled him to write his plays, without flamboyance and vulgarity, but with, instead, compassion and integrity and humour and a wealth of understanding, which ensured that, in no single one of them, was any line penned that, in any way, diminishes the dignity of man – rather, enhances it. The fact is – let us thank God for it – he, himself, with his own works, inscribed his own unique and indestructible memorial.
I read you whatever the subject and more or less whatever else is going on, so saw the Rattigan in today’s Personal Finance post. Thanks for it. Yesterday I had a look at getting TR’s Heart to Heart to read. No luck yet.