Daily Japan: Business Happenings in the Americas that May Be “Below the Radar” – Week Ending January 17, 2019 and more

In this briefing:

1. Business Happenings in the Americas that May Be “Below the Radar” – Week Ending January 17, 2019
2. Japan: Relative Price Scores – Overbought and Oversold Companies – Calling ‘Tops’ & ‘Bottoms’
3. Courts Asia To Be Taken Over By Nojima
4. The Burden of Too Big Government
5. Arcs, Valor and Retail Partners Form First Nationwide Supermarket Alliance

1. Business Happenings in the Americas that May Be “Below the Radar” – Week Ending January 17, 2019

Highlights of significant recent happenings include:

2. Japan: Relative Price Scores – Overbought and Oversold Companies – Calling ‘Tops’ & ‘Bottoms’

Source: Japan Analytics

RELATIVE PRICE SCORE – The Relative Price Score (RPS) measures stock price performance relative to TOPIX and is calculated by comparing the current deviation with the mean absolute deviation of monthly and daily relative share prices. As all companies are, as a result, on a comparable scale, ‘overbought’ and ‘oversold’ outliers and changes in scoring can reveal short-term and longer-term trading opportunities. This insight updates our list of overbought and oversold companies, reviews the best and worst performing companies by RPS over the last two months and adds some specific comments on stocks on each category.

RPS STATISTICS – The Company ‘outlier’ thresholds are set to “+4” for overbought and “-2” for oversold.  Currently, of the 3,686 listed companies for which monthly data is available, 91 companies are ‘Overbought’, and 120 are ‘Oversold’ – 2.5% and 3.2%, respectively of the total. For companies with a market capitalisation of over ¥100b, there are 35 ‘Overbought’ and 24 ‘Oversold’ companies. 

RPS ‘TOPS’ – In the last two years, 445 companies have achieved an RPS of ‘4’ or more. 80% have seen their RPS fall to below ‘4’ within the following two months. For companies with a market capitalisation higher than ¥100b, the numbers are 95 companies and 63% – demonstrating the superior persistence of large capitalisation companies in this regard. Some examples of RPS mean reversion in the last two months have been Descente (8114 JP),  Ariake Japan (2815 JP), Fancl (4921 JP), Bandai Namco (7832 JP), Don Quijote (7532 JP), and Gmo Payment Gateway (3769 JP).

RPS ‘BOTTOMS’ – 296 companies have seen their RPS fall to ‘-2’ or below in the last two years. 58% have seen their RPS recover to above ‘-2’ within three to six months. For larger capitalisation companies, the numbers are 72 companies and 67%. Some recent examples of positive RPS mean reversion in the last two months have been LINE Corp (3938 JP) – a ‘contrarians only’ selection in our last Insight, and Tokyo Electric Power (9501 JP).

3. Courts Asia To Be Taken Over By Nojima

Courts Asia Ltd (COURTS SP), a leading electrical, consumer electronics and furniture retailer in predominantly Singapore and Malaysia, has announced a voluntary conditional offer from Nojima Corp (7419 JP) at $0.205/share, a 34.9% premium to the last closing price.

The key condition to the Offer is the valid acceptances of 50% of shares out. Singapore Retail Group, with 73.8%, has given an irrevocable to tender. Once tendered, this offer will become unconditional.

CAL’s share price has endured a steady decline since touching $1.14 back in May 2015. It traded above the Offer price as recently as late-July 2018.

However, the controlling shareholder, which has maintained its stake since CAL’s listing in 2012, is cashing in. Nojima has stated it will exercise its right to compulsorily acquisition if acceptances reach 90%; and it does not intend to support any action or take steps to maintain the listing status of the company in the event its suspended due to free float requirements. I would look to cash out also. Consideration under the Offer may be remitted as early as the fourth week of Feb.

4. The Burden of Too Big Government

From our very own “Austrian” Leigh Skene:

Wars in old times were made to get slaves. The modern implement of imposing slavery is debt. Ezra Pound

Governments used public sector balance sheets to bail out private financial institutions and assist private companies to emerge from bankruptcy in the GFC. These actions transferred credit risk from the private to the public sector, yet falling nominal interest rates minimised, and in some cases froze, the cost of servicing the mounting government debt until late 2016. Since then, many borrowers have paid rising  interest rates on increasing amounts of debt. Debt service charges are rising faster than nominal GDP in a growing number of nations as a result. It is estimated that the US federal funding requirement will rise from minus US$ 700bn to US$ 2tr in 2022.

5. Arcs, Valor and Retail Partners Form First Nationwide Supermarket Alliance

The supermarket sector is the most fragmented and uncompetitive of all retail sectors, a situation encouraged by major suppliers and not ideal for consumers.

Despite some effort from the likes of Aeon, consolidation has failed to materialise beyond a few in-group mergers.

Yet pressure on supermarkets to consolidate has been building due to depopulation in the regions, competitive pressures from other food retailers such as convenience stores and drugstore chains, as well as the emerging online food services.

Change is now coming. The biggest industry consolidation yet was announced last month, a precedent-setting alliance between three major supermarkets, Arcs Co Ltd (9948 JP), Valor Holdings (9956 JP) and Retail Partners (8167 JP), carving up a large chunk of the country into three regional fiefdoms.