(Reuters) — The Nikkei’s climb to within striking distance of a record high marks Japanese stocks’ long walk out of the investment wilderness as money, momentum and signs of change in corporate Japan put the market back atop global portfolios.
It has been a long time coming: more than 34 years and long enough to scar a generation of Japanese investors, who through bitter experience have been sellers into this powerful rally.
With the Nikkei up 50% in just over a year, however, global managers are now feeling the pain of missing out and scrambling to get in.
Favourable valuations, buybacks and other market-friendly corporate decisions also have investors convinced there is no bubble this time around. Inflows are only getting started, say dealers and fund managers, and barely weeks into the year brokerage analysts have been revising price targets upwards.
“If I was going to put it terms of (a) baseball analogy, I think that we’re still…
