 Really a once-in-a-century crisis? — The current state of the global economy
and equity market is not as serious as the US Great Depression or the collapse
of Japan’s economic bubble. Japan’s bubble in the 1980s was bigger than the
US housing bubble. The same goes for a comparison with the Great Depression.
 Worst growth rate over 100 years: –13% — The worst US GDP growth rate was –
13.0% in 1932, followed by –11.0% in 1946. Our economics & rate strategy
group forecasts growth of –2.3% in 2009. The level looks set to close in on the
1982 figure of –1.9%, which ranks as the sixth worst growth rate ever.
 The Japanese bubble was much bigger than the US one — There were bubbles
in the late 1980s in Japan in both equities and real estate, but the US has only
been going through a housing bubble. The essence of Japan’s problem was
that it went through an equity market bubble when cross shareholding rates
were high.
 The lessons of Japan’s mistakes — The economy remained weak and deflation
became entrenched in the wake of the collapse of the bubble economy. Added
to the brew were falling international competitiveness, declining potential
growth rates due to a falling population, and failures in the policy response.
With the world of politics unstable, it was not until the arrival of the Koizumi
administration that the NPL problem was resolved.
 Share prices precede the real economy by six month to a year — Whereas
Japanese share prices peaked most recently in February 2007, the economy
peaked in October 2007. We forecast that the US GDP growth rate will improve
4.6ppt to 2.3% in 2010 from –2.3% in 2009.
 Forecasting a reversal from April–June — Assuming a US-based recovery in the
global economy materializes from 2010, which is what we are forecasting, we
feel it is a good idea to seek the right time for overweighting high-beta
Japanese stocks that are highly sensitive to the global economy in international
allocations. We recommend banks.

[此贴子已经被作者于2009-2-5 11:13:51编辑过]