Originally published June 2023.
When the shōgun of value investing in Japan says “jump,” my only possible response is “Hai, sensei! How high?” So, it is no coincidence that when the oracle of Omaha, Buffett-sama flagged Japanese trading companies as too cheap to ignore and bought significant equity stakes in them, it was time to jump into the Empire of the Rising Nikkei. Sumitomo, Mitsui, Itochu, Mitsubishi and Marubeni, the legendary “sōgō shōsha” whose global trading networks engineered Meiji Japan rise to General Tojo’s imperial war machine and then peaceful, baseball and ikebana loving post-war Japan’s economic miracle.
