Japanese companies go on shopping spree with strong yen

Rakuten is a great company but they will have a very hard fight overseas with Amazon and eBay. I doubt they will make much dent in eBay's and Amazon's business. Those 2 really have the Western market covered and understand how buyers and sellers work.

It will be a bit like Microsoft going after Google in Search, it's never going to happen. Japanese consumer behavior is very different from consumers overseas.

Regardless pretty successful company. Kudos to them!

It is refreshing to see a Japanese businessman embrace whatever is thrown at him and try and make a success of it. Mikitani calls them as he sees them, stating that a lot of companies don't have the knowledge to acquire overseas companies, and it is the truth. I have been saying for a while that I understand the high yen will hurt exports, but at the same time, it offers a lot of opportunities, from cheap procurement, to this kind of story.

A strong yen will only help those Japanese companies which aren't xenophobic and have the typical domestic mentality and aversion to change and people/situations that are unfamiliar. Only Rakuten and maybe Fast Retailing although I'm skeptical of the latter.

Corporate Japan is dying because of its insistence on remaining a closed country and hiring only Japanese with rare exceptions.

late disclosure, i think yen is likely to weaken shortly.

SouthSakai, have you been paying any attention to where Rakuten is expanding? eBay is a one market company. Amazon has managed to spread more broadly, but neither of them is truely global yet.

I agree with Michael, it's about making the best of whatever situation you are in.

Japanese companies go on shopping spree with strong yen

While keeping the domestic consumer prices of import goods skyrocketing high, including gasoline.

True Munya in some things. But if you look up prices of things from like 25 years ago. They are on line, there is a big difference. Yen will go to about ¥100/$1.00

@JapanGal

We are not 25 years ago this is here and now and they should flexibly adjust the prices of imported goods to the present exchange rate the same way they do it instantly when the yen weakens.

I am with Munya on this - we are ripped no matter what way the rate is going. Now Maehara calls for companies to buy foreign assets and stock up with natural resources. So they do but always lie that those resources were bought when petrol price was high or yen was down...

I can not explain to myself for example why airplane tickets are more expensive than 2 years ago. I paid less yen for flight around Christmas and the yen was like 115/USD. Fuel surcharge had never been more than the price of the ticket istself (now it is).

Strong yen, share prices down.........................buy on huge discount, really it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure this out.

The yen will continue to strengthen as the Fed continues to initiate QE3, QE4, QE5...

Let's make a glass of lemonade from a lemon. I like that.

Visionary investors and managers always find opportunities. It's all up to us.