“Thank you so much for a wonderful service. I'm pleased to tell you that I just renewed my subscription and look forward to another interesting investment year.

“One question: You have mentioned from time to time that the Japanese market has decent potential, provided the Yen weakens. My own (rather frustrating) experience in the Japanese mkt has been that from a foreign investor's perspective, the gains/losses in the equity market and fx tend to cancel each other out. As I am restricted from using derivatives, I was wondering if you are aware of a fund/IT/ETF that hedges the fx exposure. Perhaps you might have some other solution to suggest? I am EUR based but a USD or GBP denominated fund would do too. “

Eoin Treacy's view My comment – Thank you for your kind words, continued patronage and interesting question. It has long been a complaint among foreign investors that the Yen's gyrations offset any profits in the Japanese stock market. UK leveraged traders can manage this risk through spread-bets and others may choose to use currency options to offset the Yen's weakness.

Here are charts of the Nikkei-225 in US Dollars, Euro, British Pounds and Australian Dollars. They demonstrate that the Nikkei has been rising faster than the Yen has been deteriorating since late last year.

The Atlantis Japan Growth Trust is denominated US Dollars, trades at a 6.81% discount to NAV and listed in the UK. It focuses on the small to mid-cap sectors. The iShares MSCI Japan Monthly EUR Hedged ETF is also listed in the UK but is denominated in Euro. The Schroder Japan Growth trust trades at a 12% discount to NAV and is denominated in Pounds.