Faith in the recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic that had made the Nikkei the darling of investment bets on global reflation has faltered. Japanese investors have turned cautious about pushing the index back to levels not seen since the bubble economy burst in the early 1990s. Japan’s own economic outlook has also dimmed, with Tokyo in a third state of emergency and the pace of vaccinations well behind global peers. “Investors are now in wait-and-see mode, but that implies they are accumulating potential buying power, ” said Yunosuke Ikeda, Nomura’s Tokyo-based chief equity strategist. But he sees that lag as an opportunity to play catch-up subsequently, with vaccinations also picking up pace by that time.

Source: The Star April 29, 2021 02:33 UTC