(Richard Farleigh pictured left) His views are contrary to a host of managers who have recently come out in favour of the geography, including Trustnet Alpha Managers Stephen Harker and Rob Hepworth, and Tim Cockerill, head of investment research at IFA Ashcourt Rowan.
The IMA Japan sector has underperformed the UK All Companies and the Global Emerging Markets sectors in the past one and five years – but managers have recently been talking the sector up, pointing to equities' price-to-book values, and saying they are better value than ever.
Performance of IMA Japan sector over 5-yrs
Source: Financial Express Analytics
The comments from Farleigh came as he launched a new retail broking business, H2O Markets. The brokerage will deal with CFDs and foreign exchange trading, as well as advising clients. He calls the new project a sweet spot of his interests, and says the business will focus on price behaviour concepts.
"We want to simplify the data out there, and help retail investors understand the markets. I'm interested in countries' economics," he said.