Ride the Japanese Wave, Don't Grab That China Falling Knife

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It was nearly three years ago when the China stock market notched a short-term peak. Recall how the world's second-largest economy was initially seen as a growth engine coming out of the worst of the pandemic. An authoritative regime in China, led by President Xi Jinping, crippled the economy's expansion trajectory through harsh ongoing lockdowns and by clamping down on many industries, one after another. Then in early 2023, hope sprang eternal that China would re-open amid a burst of consumer spending, a la what was seen during the 'revenge travel' period in the United States back in 2021 and 2022. That did not come to fruition, and the Hang Seng Index is now down by more than 50% in the last three years.

With all that turmoil going on in China, Japan's Nikkei 225 Index has continued to soar. Up more than 20% since February of 2021, the once sleepy Tokyo stock market features among the best momentum readings of all countries. Based on these trends, sticking with the 'long Nikkei, short China' trade should keep working, in my view. Another way to play it is by being long developed market stocks and avoiding emerging market funds (which still have a roughly 20% allocation to China).

Finally, while China trades at a single-digit P/E ratio today, Japan is by no means expensive. Goldman Sachs notes that the country's current 12-month forward earnings multiple is just 14.9, about average compared to its 20-year history (Asia-Pac ex-Japan is 12.3x, for perspective). Interestingly, Japan is back up to 6% of the global stock market allocation while China has sunk to just 3%. Perhaps it is indeed the land of the rising sun while China is a classic "sub"-merging market.

A solid ETF to play Japan continues to be the WisdomTree Japan Hedged Equity ETF (DXJ) which hedges exposure to the Japanese Yen. The ETF has a solid track record of outperforming other Japanese country funds.