My investment linked insurance are heavy linked to japan related fund. For the past five years , they are cheap.. i hope they remain cheap so i could buy another 20 years and then sell off when they are back to peak , like 5 times increment .. :)

I love underperformer like japan , hot seller like china will break .. too crowded already

richtan      ( Date: 05-Aug-2009 23:21) Posted: 'Green shoots' are sprouting in Japan   by Tony Sagami Dear Subscriber, Japan has been one of the worst places you could have invested your money over the last five, 10, and 20 years. Some people, including Japan's Prime Minister Taro Aso, think that is about to change. Last week, Aso vowed to boost Japan's annual economic growth to 2 percent by early 2011. "By the second half of fiscal 2010, we will achieve an annual growth rate of 2 percent," Aso said. Aso also promised to create 2 million jobs within three years, to increase household incomes by $10,000 a year, and that Japan would lead the world in per capita income. But it won't be an easy task. I say that because the Bank of Japan (the Japanese Fed) is forecasting that the Japanese economy will shrink by 3.4 percent this year. The signs of a recovery, or so-called "green shoots," are slowly starting to materialize. That's important because a country's stock market typically takes off 6-12 months ahead of an economic turnaround. Here's what's happening in the Japanese economy. Green Shoot #1: Rising Industrial Output. Japanese manufacturers increased production for a fourth month in a row in June, capping the largest quarterly output expansion in more than 50 years. In the second quarter, the country's output climbed 8.3 percent compared to the previous quarter, making it the biggest quarter-on-quarter increase since 1953. China's $585 billion of stimulus spending has helped demand for Japanese cars, construction equipment and steel. Green Shoot #2: Rising Steel Demand. Nippon Steel Corporation, Japan's largest steel producer, is going to re-start two mothballed furnaces at its Oita plant in southern Japan and will increase output of crude steel by 40 percent in the July-September quarter. Green Shoot #3: Better-Than-Expected Car Profits. Honda and Mitsubishi, the second- and third-largest car makers in Japan, jumped on last week after they delivered better-than-expected profits. Government stimulus measures from the United States, Germany, Japan and China — tax credits and tax subsidies for trading in an old car for a new fuel-efficient model — are boosting demand. Green Shoot #4: Smaller-Than-Expected Sony Loss. Sony lost a lot of money in the second quarter — 37 billion yen ($400 million) but that was way, way less than the $109 billion loss the Manhattan experts were expecting. Sony expects business to get a lot better though. "We are keeping our official forecast but internally we are aiming to at least break even," Sony CFO Nobuyuki Oneda said. Electronic competitors Fujitsu, Sanyo, NEC Corp, Mitsubishi Electric, and Sharp also delivered improved results. Green Shoot #5: IMF Raises Forecast. The International Monetary Fund raised its outlook for Japan, raising its 2009 forecast from -6.2 percent to -6.0 percent and from 0.5 percent to 1.7 percent in 2010. An important part of that optimism is the big trading business Japan does with China, who the IMF expects to grow by 7.5 percent. Green Shoot #6: Nikkei on the Move. As I said at the top of this article, stock market gains typically precede economic recovery. If that's true, the rise of the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average to a 10-month high at the end of July is a very encouraging sign.

Seagate Technology to lay off 2,000 employees in Singapore
By Nicholas Fang & Ng Baoying, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 04 August 2009 1547 hrs

	Photos 1 of 1 A worker at Seagate Technology inspects a disc drive at the company's facility in Singapore. (file pic)

SINGAPORE: Seagate Technology announced on Tuesday it would relocate its hard disk drive manufacturing operations from Ang Mo Kio to other existing Seagate facilities by end-2010, laying off some 2,000 employees in the process.

The company said in a statement that this consolidation is necessary in order for it to further increase efficiency and reduce costs by leveraging investments across fewer manufacturing sites.

The statement also said that Singapore would remain a key strategic partner for Seagate, with a focus on high-value activities, and the company would continue to make strategic investments in the country.

Seagate has two other facilities in Singapore – located at Science Park and Woodlands.

Singapore is home to the company's only hard drive design centre and first volume manufacturing site outside of the United States, and the first Recording Media Operations facilities outside of North America.

Seagate said its Woodlands media operation, Seagate's Asia International Headquarters (IHQ), and the Science Park product development and design centre will remain in Singapore.

It said the company is giving every consideration to relocating some Ang Mo Kio employees to other Singapore operations. Employees ending their employment with Seagate will be offered retrenchment packages in line with industry standards, which include a month's pay for every year of service.

Singapore's labour movement said the move is a last resort for Seagate, which has been in talks with the employees' union over the past few weeks.

The company will work with the union and Singapore's Employment and Employability Institute (e2i) to help affected employees.

Halimah Yacob, deputy secretary-general, National Trades Union Congress (NTUC), said: "What is most important is not to focus on the retrenchment or the fact that 2,000 people are going to be unemployed.

"What's most critical for us is what kind of support and assistance can we provide to the workers who are going to be retrenched? This is where we work closely with the company and e2i in order to put the workers through training programmes, job placement."

She noted that retrenchments in the electronics sector occur for two reasons – fall in demand due to global economic downturn and internal restructuring for cost efficiency.

"Retrenchments in the electronics sector are typically due to two reasons... one is because of poor demand, weak orders that companies are facing. To some extent, this is temporary because you can resort to shorter work week, temporary plant shutdown and wait for the orders to come," said Mdm Halimah.

"But there's the other type – ongoing review and restructuring of operations. For global companies, they have plants all over the world, so they will look for the most efficient, effective, productive way to produce this particular kind of product."

Economists said such retrenchment exercises are not surprising.

Song Seng Wun, CEO & regional economist, CIMB-GK Research, said: "Disk drive operators have been moving out of Singapore over the last few years and it is a wonder that Seagate is still around in Singapore after so long. When we look at the data itself, disk drive value added to the overall manufacturing has declined steadily."

Disk drive manufacturing is labour intensive and analysts said it makes sense for firms to shift operations to countries like Thailand, Malaysia and China where costs are lower.

Bear Rally Looks Eager to Recharge