Active Investing in Japan

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Japanese mutual funds listed in the U.S. are struggling, given the mostly weak performance of Japanese equities year-to-date and a weak yen. There are 44 Japanese mutual funds according to Yahoo! Finance. Among them, only a few are trading positive for the year and by a very little amount at that. Below is a list of the funds, ranked by net assets, as of Aug. 31, 2007. Two Fidelity funds have the most net assets ($1.72B and $807M), which has been the case for a while. The Fidelity Japan Smaller Companies (FJSCX) fund had been closed, but is apparently open again to new investors. Click to continue reading and view the ranking table. continue reading…

Japan market summary for Tuesday (Oct. 9)
Nikkei 225 Stock Average: +94.86 (+0.6%) to 17,159.90
Nikkei 225 futures Osaka: +70 (+0.4%) to 17,200, Singapore (SGX) +90 (+0.5%) to 17,200, Chicago (CME) *10/8 -25 (-0.1%) to 17,290
TOPIX: +3.15 (+0.2%) to 1,660.06; Advancers 1,055 x decliners 556 (unch. 111), New highs 33 x new lows 11; 19/33 sectors posted gains
Jasdaq: +17.37 (+0.9%) to 1,901.92
Yen: weakened 0.6% against US$ to 117.20 level late in Tokyo; weakened 0.1% against euro to 164.65 level
Notes: Recent bullishness continues for emerging indices MOTHERS and HERCULES, up 2.8% and 3.8%, respectively. Larger caps traded strong in early activity, but gave back some gains in the afternoon session. Sentiment has improved with the 25-day A/D line back over 100 for the TOPIX 1st Section.