Good FT article about Japan

[Roger Van Zant]

https://www.ft.com/content/23b560a4-f0f ... d4807211f4

Can Japan’s legendary savers spark a stock market boom?

Are savers about to become serious, price-moving retail investors in a domestic Japanese stock market that they have long shunned like a casino? Even a relatively moderate positive answer and a mere 2 per cent reallocation of assets, say analysts at AllianceBernstein, could produce $150bn of inflows into equities. If that happened, it would be market moving, say brokers. Inflows of less than half of that from foreign investors triggered a rally of more than 25 per cent in the Topix this year.

[Deep Blue]

No, I suspect the vast majority of new NISA investors will be similar to the current NISA investors and invest in foreign equities rather than Japanese.

[Deep Blue]

I don't recall where but I seem to remember 60% is in foreign equity funds.

[Wales4rugbyWC23]

Something must be changing if the Japanese Post office is now advertising a NISA now. I think they've only been accepting credit cards for a few years.

[northSaver]

Are there stats on what NISA are invested?
Would be interesting, but I couldn’t find such statistics.

I'd also be interested in seeing that data. A quick search reveals that in the current NISAs (regular and tsumitate combined) about 58% is invested in MFs, and 39% in listed stocks. The other 3% is in ETFs and REITs:
https://investmentjapan.jp/japans-basic/3698/

A different source states that the most popular stocks are high-yielding Japanese ones, with 2914 Japan Tobacco at the top. Unfortunately it doesn't state which MFs are most popular:
https://www.nikkei.co.jp/nikkeiinfo/en/ ... mance.html

The reddit expert u/starkimpossibility says "the most popular low-fee global index fund is eMAXIS Slim All-Country", but doesn't provide a source to confirm it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/JapanFinance/c ... ?rdt=38304

According to this article, "Most analyst estimates show the money has gone primarily into U.S. equity funds and U.S. single stocks". Again, no source:
https://www.reuters.com/markets/asia/wh ... 023-11-30/

So maybe nobody knows the true allocations over all accounts? Or they do but they just don't publish it? Personally I'd be surprised if a hefty chunk isn't invested in Japanese funds and stocks, due to home country bias. However, I agree that the (slim?) majority is probably invested in international stock market funds, and eMAXIS Slim All Country is probably the most popular of these.

[beanhead]

I don't recall where but I seem to remember 60% is in foreign equity funds.

Most of the Japanese blogs and financial news sites I have read recommend S&P500 or All-Country funds for long-term investing.

[Tsumitate Wrestler]

I don't recall where but I seem to remember 60% is in foreign equity funds.

Most of the Japanese blogs and financial news sites I have read recommend S&P500 or All-Country funds for long-term investing.

Here is the official link, with an excel file to boot.

https://www.fsa.go.jp/policy/nisa/20230922.html

[beanhead]

https://www.fsa.go.jp/policy/nisa/20230922.html

Good stuff. Thanks for posting.

It doesn't differentiate between US or worldwide funds and Japanese funds, unfortunately.
Or break down the tsumitate and regular NISA product detail.
Oh well.