Nomura CEO Confident on Japan’s Stock Market Growth

Nomura Holdings Inc. Chief Executive Officer Koji Nagai predicted Japanese stocks will rally over the next six years as economic expansion fuels corporate profits.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average (NKY) will climb to around 25,000 by 2020, up about 57 percent from today, the CEO of Japan’s biggest brokerage said at a forum in Tokyo. “Growth of Japan’s economy is assured until 2020 as it will benefit from development in Asia,” said Nagai, 55.

Nagai’s optimism contrasts with a stalling stock market. The Nikkei 225 has fallen 2.5 percent this year after ending 2013 at a six-year high, as investors grow wary that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s policies of monetary easing, fiscal spending and structural reforms will boost the economy.

The yen will probably weaken to 120 against the dollar from the current 109.5 around 2016 before stabilizing in the 110 range, Nagai said at the event, which was organized by the Nikkei newspaper.

Japan’s currency has fallen about 4 percent against the dollar in the past month amid prospects for the central bank to continue unprecedented monetary easing while the Federal Reserve weighs the timing of its first rate increase. The yen touched a six-year low of 110.09 on Oct. 1.

The Bank of Japan may end its policy of keeping interest rates at zero as soon as 2017, Nagai said.

via Bloomberg

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza