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Investors, both foreign and domestic, are returning to the Japanese stock market in droves. The value of shares traded on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the fiscal year that ended last month shot to ¥323.2 trillion ($3.4 trillion) — 13 percent higher than in fiscal 2011 and marking the first annual increase since 2008.

When it comes to providing the trading services that investors prize most highly, no brokerage does a better job than Nomura Securities Co., which leads Institutional Investor's All-Japan Trading Team for a second year running. In fact, the upper echelon of this year's ranking is the same as last year's: Daiwa Securities Group returns in second place, followed by UBS in third and Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley Securities Co. at No. 4. Mizuho Securities Group, absent from this roster last year, debuts in fifth place.

The 2013 All-Japan Trading Team is based on the opinions of nearly 370 investment professionals from more than 190 firms managing an estimated $524 billion in Japanese equity assets; roughly 41 percent of the people who cast votes in the broader research survey, representing 69 percent of the participating institutions that participated in the broader All-Japan Research Team survey, responded to our question about which sell-side firms provide the best trading services.