Businessweek (December 6)
“With the Nikkei stock average down 76 percent from its 1989 peak and 1.5 quadrillion yen ($18 trillion) in wealth erased when an asset bubble burst, a generation of Japanese investors has grown up convinced that stocks only go down.” They have become too risk averse. There’s a strong “case to be made for Japanese stocks. The country has the lowest taxes on dividends among developed nations and a 10 percent capital-gains tax, which compares well with 15 percent in the U.S. and 28 percent in Britain. Shares of companies in the Topix Index, a broader measure of stocks than the Nikkei, trade for less than the value of their assets.”
Tags: Capital-gains, Investors, Nikkei, Risk aversion, Stocks, Topix