Asia-Pacific

The market isn't overheating even though the Nikkei stock average touched the 20,000 level, nor do we believe that overseas markets are overheating right now.

Due to the developments described in this article, there is ample room for growth at Japanese firms and much opportunity for investment success.

Given the significant proportion of real estate investment as a percentage of GDP, as well as the proportion of local government revenue generated from land sales, the property market remains a crucial driver of the Chinese economy.

The March “tankan” survey results are not expected to lead to the BOJ's further acceleration of QE.

In sum, there certainly are some worrisome issues, as always, but we find none of them convincing enough to prevent moderate increases in equity prices.

Much as we expected, China's economy has continued to slow faster than consensus, but does not appear to be in a hard landing.

Central Banks: Despite firm economic growth, we believe that a negative YoY CPI through September will steady the Fed's hand.

Coupled with our expectation for global bond yields to rise moderately, we maintain our overweight view on global equities vs. bonds.

The recovery in profits by Japanese export firms should continue to attract the attention of the markets in the first half of 2015.

John Vail updates his long-standing theme: Japan's Successful “Show Me the Money” Corporate Governance.