In the first two months of 2024, we have seen a clutch of new stock market highs. From New York to Paris and Frankfurt, new price ground has been (or continues to be) broken.
Even if you tend to ignore talk of passing or simply grazing ‘psychologically important’ price levels, such markers can nonetheless serve as a reminder of the considerable time and pain that equity investors must sometimes endure before enjoying a capital gain.
Nowhere has this phenomenon been greater than in Japan. Last week, the Nikkei 225 stock index finally crested the level it first reached in 1989, when an extreme bubble in Japanese asset prices began its long deflation. Few celebrating this moment are likely to have stayed invested through those 34 years. Indeed, even in a country renowned for its longevity, many members of the Shōwa generation who were of working age at the last peak will no longer be with us.