With global fear and uncertainty leading to a plummeting Nikkei Index, we look at why Japan is so investment cautious, and what opportunities lay for those braver ones seeking to find a diamond within the ashes.

Japan's shares hit an almost five-year low Tuesday as the markets tumbled across the globe. But it's not all bad news following the Wall Street fallout, Japan's megabanks are smiling all the way to the... banks. Read Now

In this week`s newsletter we take a look at the continuing exodus of foreign companies from the Tokyo Stock Exchange. After the delisting of Boeing on August 15 the TSE now has the lowest number of foreign companies listed since the mid-eighties. So what is being done to resolve the situation?
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By David Hodgson

For fifteen years the TOPIX Index, a capitalization weighted index of all companies listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, has struggled to break above the 1750 level. Rather like a whale, it has occasionally briefly surfaced, only to dive again. What are the prospects that, this time, the TOPIX Index can break out through 1750 and move into ‘blue sky’ territory?

How to set up a stock trading account as a non-Japanese
By Yukie Lloyd

The Japanese stock market has risen over 50% in the last five years, and last year was the best-performing major stock market in the world. As a result, trillions of dollars of foreign money has been pouring into the Tokyo Stock Exchange alone over the last 12 months. Forbes.com reckons the increase was 38% last year to US$54.8 billion, about 160% more foreign investment than in 2003.