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Strategies & Market Trends : Asia Forum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tommaso who wrote (2896)	4/4/1998 4:32:00 PM
From: Stitch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9980

Tomasso; <<I would prefer to believe that your average Japanese citizen is not quite ready to withdraw all savings, convert them to dollars, and then have an American bank put the money in a U.S. mutual fund.>> I think it is a very safe bet that those funds won't roll into U.S. equities direct from the saver. But what may happen is substantial investment in the U.S. market vis a vis a very Japanese intermediate financial institution. But I cannot help but wonder which of these have confidence from the consumer right now. We need to remember that there are no 401Ks in Japan. I assume the level of management of the huge sum of saved Yen is much broader and thinner then in the U.S. Merrill Lynch is placing a big bet on Japan but I have to wonder again whether they will see the same kind of success they have seen regionally out of Hong Kong. I tend to doubt it. I suspect the mean (average) portfolio manager in Japan is a 48 year old housewife. Best, Stitch

To: Tommaso who wrote (2896)	4/5/1998 3:07:00 PM
From: Worswick	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9980

I asked a Japanese friend of mine that very question: "Of the $10 trillion how much and who would... invest in "foreign" financial assets. The answer: "My father never will but he is very poor. He has saved only $200K. Rich people will invest. That is why they are rich...because they are smart." Average Japanese savings per person are $120K. I read somewhere that average American savings per person were minus $2,800. (credit cards, installment plans, etc.) At that the Japanese man said that $1-$3 trillion might migrate over time "offshore".