In 2005, investors began to pay attention to gradual improvement in the Japanese economy aided by some long overdue government-driven reforms.
Too many investors tend to be backward looking. You can't just say they declared the quarterly dividend for the last 10 years, I guess they're going to keep paying it. Think about what the business conditions are.
When investors worldwide looked for a new game that hadn't been played in a while, they latched onto Japan in a big way.
The smaller, the better was the watchword in the first quarter. It's a sign that investors are less risk-averse than they have been in a long time.
We said it would be a stock-picker's year, and it was. Investors were particularly fickle and short-term driven.