'Quantamental' Japan Specialist, LightStream Research

Campbell Gunn

Former Japan Equity PM with over 30 of experience now providing database-driven analysis of the market, sectors, peer groups and stocks for LightStream Research.

Leveraging data and graphic analysis provided by Japan Analytics, and the related Japan Analytics iPad App, we provide insights on companies are often ignored by the sell-side as well as challenging conventional wisdom on the market overall.

'Quantamental' Japan Specialist

🇯🇵 JAPAN MARKET UPDATE 5th April 2020 • Overshoot

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Revisions & Results Update 6th April - The Japanese Experiment

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Revisions & Results Update 7th April - His Finest Hour

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Revisions & Results Update - 30th March

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Revisions & Results Update 1st April - Masking the Problem

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Revisions & Results Update 31st March > Dividends at Risk

Long-Short Analysis on Japan, Asia and the World

LightStream Research

LightStream conducts quantitatively rigorous and data-driven analysis with a focus on Japan and Asia.

We consistently cover the Tech, Consumer and Industrial sectors, and provide ECM and Events coverage more broadly.

We supplement traditional qualitative insights from company relationships with a robust quantitative foundation that examines as much historical data as is available.
We further refine the accuracy of our insights and calls through the use of alternative data to flesh out current trends, and through a valuation framework that emphasises non-superficial peer group selection and a proper attempt to understand the metrics and changes that have driven security valuations in the past.

Thematic (Sector/Industry)

Japan Consumer discretionary / Thematic (Sector/Industry)

<figure class="editor-figure mceNonEditable"><img src="https://static-prod.smartkarma.com/images/media/000/126/218/original/2020-04-03_05-20-38.png?1585862586" class="editor-image img-responsive" data-smartkarma-image-id="126218"></figure><div class="content-caption">Source • @punxjk</div>ABE-NO-MASKS - Japan's 'softly-softly' approach to COVID-19 continues despite Tokyo recording its highest number of daily new cases to date. PM Abe's two-masks-per-household policy has been widely-derided as in the viral mashup above of the TV-anime Sazae-san's seven-member family plus pet cat. The Tokyo healthcare system is close to a tipping point or 'overshoot' in 'gairaigo'. The national government is caught between wanting to avoid the economic consequences of a proper lockdown and the difficulty of enforcing such a measure even under the new emergency powers. Local governments are limited to closing high schools and publically-owned facilities.SOCIAL PRESSURE - Two Osaka hostess bars have become centres of infection, but cannot be named as the owners have refused consent fearing a loss of business. Social pressure is, however,  resulting in voluntary closures of some restaurants as well as Maruhan's 16 Tokyo pachinko parlours. Other parlours have just turned down their garish lighting to 'attract fewer customers'.<figure class="editor-figure mceNonEditable"><img src="https://static-prod.smartkarma.com/images/media/000/126/219/original/2020-04-03_06-44-57.png?1585863904" class="editor-image img-responsive" data-smartkarma-image-id="126219"></figure><div class="content-caption">Source • The Economist</div>NECESSARY PRECAUTIONS -  A new <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3561560" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study </a>by economists at the Fed and MIT Sloan of US cities during and after the 1918 flu pandemic has found that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively did not perform worse and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over. Our ﬁndings thus indicate that non-pharmaceutical interventions not only lower mortality; they also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic. While some of this effect may be due to shifts in population to the then less-populous West Coast, the difference between San Francisco and Omaha is stark. As was the case after the 1980s stock market bubble, the 2008 Financial Crisis and the events of 3/11, efforts to smooth the decline in the economy only serve to prolong the recovery.THURSDAY 2ND APRIL - A relatively quiet day saw nine quarterly results, with four of the nine companies also making revisions or initial forecasts. All but one of the results scored negatively, and none had a positive change. Of the eight forecasts, only two were positive.

Source • @punxjkABE-NO-MASKS - Japan's 'softly-softly' approach to COVID-19 continues despite Tokyo recording its highest number of daily new cases to date. PM Abe's two-masks-per-household policy has been widely-derided as in the viral mashup above of the TV-anime Sazae-san's seven-member family plus pet cat. The Tokyo healthcare system is close to a tipping point or 'overshoot' in 'gairaigo'. The national government is caught between wanting to avoid the economic consequences of a proper lockdown and the difficulty of enforcing such a measure even under the new emergency powers. Local governments are limited to closing high schools and publically-owned facilities.SOCIAL PRESSURE - Two Osaka hostess bars have become centres of infection, but cannot be named as the owners have refused consent fearing a loss of business. Social pressure is, however,  resulting in voluntary closures of some restaurants as well as Maruhan's 16 Tokyo pachinko parlours. Other parlours have just turned down their garish lighting to 'attract fewer customers'.Source • The EconomistNECESSARY PRECAUTIONS -  A new study by economists at the Fed and MIT Sloan of US cities during and after the 1918 flu pandemic has found that cities that intervened earlier and more aggressively did not perform worse and, if anything, grow faster after the pandemic is over. Our ﬁndings thus indicate that non-pharmaceutical interventions not only lower mortality; they also mitigate the adverse economic consequences of a pandemic. While some of this effect may be due to shifts in population to the then less-populous West Coast, the difference between San Francisco and Omaha is stark. As was the case after the 1980s stock market bubble, the 2008 Financial Crisis and the events of 3/11, efforts to smooth the decline in the economy only serve to prolong the recovery.THURSDAY 2ND APRIL - A relatively quiet day saw nine quarterly results, with four of the nine companies also making revisions or initial forecasts. All but one of the results scored negatively, and none had a positive change. Of the eight forecasts, only two were positive.  

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Revisions & Results Update 2nd April - Necessary Precautions

Japan Consumer Discretionary

🇯🇵 JAPAN • Revisions & Results Update 2nd April - Necessary Precautions