To recap, we tested the following metrics, drawn from each company’s fiscal year-end reports and stated in USD, and correlated them with the percent price return in local currency over the past five years.
Investor activism in Japanese companies has been the subject of a fair amount of recent conjecture. Specifically, foreign investors have been concerned about the relative prevalence of minority interest, the ghosts of fading Keiretsus on Japanese companies’ financial statements.
While Asian financial companies have by no means been safe from the recent banking turmoil scything through other developed economies, regional banks have had a far less punishing month in terms of sales and earnings estimates than their peers in other markets.
Yields on 10-Year Japanese Government Bonds have fallen by about a third over the past two weeks, as shown in the chart below.
The Japanese Government Bond 10-year breakeven inflation has run contra to recent worldwide trends as one of the few sovereign rates of its kind to decline year to date.
With Caixin China PMI numbers today broadly confirming Monday’s official CCP data, the outlook for China and its neighbors remains bright.
