< The 2016 All-Japan Research Team

Total appearances: 4

Team debut: 2013

It’s three straight years in third place for Junichi Makino, who wins praise from one portfolio manager for “his quick updates and detailed comments on each important global economic event.” Of primary concern to the SMBC Nikko Securities economist is a potential further erosion of the oil market and the effects that could have on the yen. “If oil prices decline further, the global market’s risk-off mode will worsen and the [U.S. Federal Reserve] may delay its rate hikes,” he explains. “This behavior by the Fed will let the yen-dollar appreciate further, and a stronger yen will depress corporate profits and corporate sentiment.” The yen was trading below 112 to the dollar in mid-March, and to alleviate the currency’s negative impacts on the domestic economy and markets, measures are necessary to push that value to 120, the researcher advises. Accordingly, he supports the Bank of Japan’s January decision to adopt a negative interest rate policy, since the central bank’s rate cut will widen the interest differential between the U.S. and Japan, thus enabling relative depreciation of the yen. Overall, Makino, 50, is forecasting that the domestic economy will improve in the second half of the year. Oil prices should reach bottom, thanks to an improvement of the crude inventory ratio, he projects, and the BoJ is likely to cut interest rates further and expand its program of quantitative and qualitative monetary easing.