Japan: Hindsight is a wonderful thing

One of the best developed equity markets during 2013 was Japan, driven largely by the economic reforms of Prime Minister Abe. However, it is easy to see that in retrospect. For a lot of advisers, the story from fund managers that Japanese equities were about to recover had been pedalled since the turn of the century. There have been a number of false dawns and short-term rallies in that period but the main benchmark index, the Nikkei 225, is still less than half its peak level of over 39,000 in November 1989. With that in mind, it is understandable why investors remain sceptical. H...