When most investors talk about Japanese stocks they usually talk about the price movements in the Nikkei 225 index – it's the most widely-used measure of Japanese, although it's not actually tracked by any major ETFs in the UK.
The most widely-used index is actually a subset of the MSCI World index and is called the MSCI Japan index, although many fund managers also choose to use the TOPIX, managed by the Tokyo Stock Exchange – this latter index is especially popular with structured products providers and ETF companies such as Lyxor. The TOPIX covers much of the same ground as the Nikkei but with a wider spread of companies and sectors – ie, it's slightly less concentrated than the Nikkei. The MSCI Japan Index is an institutional construct based on the widely used MSCI index series and includes virtually all the companies that are found on the TOPIX index.
Tracking the Japanese indices using ETFs
| Details | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Fund | Lyxor ETF Japan | DBX MSCI Japan | iShares MSCI |
| TRN Index | Japan SmallCap | ||
| Ticker/EPIC | LTPX | XMJP | ISJP |
| Issuer | Lyxor | Deutsche DBX | iShares Barclays |
| TER | 0.50% | 0.50% | 0.59% |
| Currency | GBP | GBP | GBP |
| Underlying | TOPIX | MSCI Japan | MSCI Japan |
| Index | Tokyo Index | Small Cap | |
| Launch date | 25/09/2007 | 08/01/2007 | 08/05/2008 |
