Japan's Nikkei Index finally exceeds it's 1990 high
It has managed to smash past the 40,000 level. Here is the chart:
So what has caused this surge?
Well, in April 2023, Warren Buffet visited Japan and disclosed that Berkshire Hathaway, his investment holdings company, had increased it's holdings of Japanese stocks and they now made up 7.4% of Berkshire's portfolio. In particular, he'd bought five Japanese general trading companies (so-called sogo-shosha) - Itochu Corp., Marubeni Corp., Mitsubishi Corp., Mitsui, and Sumitomo Corp.
He said these sogo-shosha were the Japanese equivalent of Berkshire Hathaway.
Fast forward to February 2024, and Buffet devoted most of his annual letter to Berkshire shareholders to these Japanese stocks, calling them shareholder-friendly.
Naturally speculators piled in, anticipating that Berkshire would buy more - and the Nikkei shot up, finally exceeding it's 1990 levels. It's only taken 34 years.