Europe’s Bourses Enter the Euro Era;

A Trader Still Dreams Big Dreams About Japan

By Peter C. Du Bois

Foreign Investment, International Trader, Barron’s – Market Week, January 4, 1999

[Sid Klein] adds that U.S. institutions are “seriously underinvested” in Japan, which “now has bottomed and is implementing everything the west had urged them to do”.  Furthermore, Klein believes that a repatriation of Japanese money held abroad will drive up the value of the yen and Japanese equities.  In this climate, he’s focusing mainly on domestic-demand-oriented plays.  Among his “super-cheap” picks are six “low-risk” stocks he thinks could rise 50% over the next year or so.

Cleanup (kitchen and sanitary equipment) boasts a book value of 1,026 yen a share.  It closed Thursday (the final session of 1998) at 620 yen a share, up from a summer low of 421 but down from 1,680 in 1996.  His targets (short- and long-term) are 900 and 1,300.

On the same basis, his numbers for other favourites are, respectively: Orient (consumer credit) 797, 252, 220, 730, 400 and 650; Kokusai Securities (brokerage) 912, 1,062, 819, 1,615, 1,300 and 1,700; Marubeni (global trading and domestic construction) 284, 194, 155, 630, 275 and 400;  Mori Seiki (machinery) 1,295, 1,280, 1,009, 2,500, 1,550 and 1,900;  and Japan Airport Terminal (airport ownership and management) 779, 695, 522, 1,720, 800 and 1,250.