A QUICK ONE: 1989 And All That

Now and again, when "events" happen, I'll post a shorter squib inbetween the monthly Hat-Tip Essays. This is such.

Courtesy of The Financial Times

Friend,

Having just come back from Budapest, I can attest to the fact that 1989 feels like a lifetime ago. A trip to the House of Terror - a museum dedicated to the Hungarian Communism experience - is sobering. It's hard to believe that it only ended a generation or so ago.

Lest we forget, and all that.

1989 also had:

• The Tiananmen Square protest

• The fall of the Berlin Wall and the unravelling of the Iron Curtain

• The introduction of the Council Tax Poll Tax

• The sinking of the Marchioness

• The Hillsborough disaster

• England losing the Ashes 4-0 (and this was before Shane Warne).

1989 was also the year that the Japanese stock market (Nikkei) hit an all-time high. Whisper it quietly, it has just got back there. Only took three-plus decades!

Some will say that Japan is a model example of how long markets can remain in the red. Others “If only I’d invested the ranch in Japan in 2005!” Glass half-full and all that.

Regardless, it’s quite the psychological moment for the Japanese. Perhaps the country has indeed turned its back on “three-and-a-half decades of economic stagnation.”

We don’t take bets on which markets are going to be hot or cold. We just buy them all. So Japan is around 6% of our client portfolios (and mine, because I take my own medicine) via ISAs and pensions etc.

As for Budapest? It is a fabulous city break; unlike the Japanese Nikkei, it’s way ahead of where it was in 1989. Progress is all around us!