He Does Well By Himself

The equities markets are in a light froth this morning over the possibility Health, Welfare and Labour Minister Shiozaki Yasuhisa will announce a change in the allocation of assets in the General Pension Investment Fund (GPIF):

Japan Mega-Pension to Shift to Stocks
Announcement for New Portfolio for Fund Expected Friday Afternoon

By Eleanor Warnock -- TOKYO — Japan's welfare minister is likely to approve a new portfolio for the country's ¥127 trillion ($1.2 trillion) pension on Friday, in a move that will have a significant impact on financial markets, according to people familiar with the matter...

(Link)

"Significant impact" means shares have risen, will rise and will keep rising, giving the market indexes a feel-good pop lasting, with any luck, well into the new year.

Minister Shiozaki himself has shareholdings -- and not in a stock fund or a blind trust, either. More than any other member of the Cabinet. Shiozaki says he is a completely passive investor -- which is good, because trading while serving in the Cabinet is verboten. Furthermore he says he only inherited his shareholdings from his maternal grandfather and generally has little interest (kanshin) in stocks.

Still, would it not be interesting, just out of the purest of intellectual motives, to calculate exactly how much today's announcement can be construed as having profited Minister Shiozaki -- i.e., how much more money he has at the end the day than he did at the beginning?

OK, here is the list of Minister Shiozaki Yasuhisa's personal shareholdings as printed in the newspapers on October 18:

Company name / # of shares

Ehime Bank / 150

Taiheiyo Cement / 600

Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding / 3,000

Bridgestone / 1,000

Panasonic / 5,620

Teijin / 11,000

Takeda Pharmaceutical / 3,630

SONY / 1,100

Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal / 19,747

NTT 102

Harima Chemicals Group / 1,000

Chubu Electric Power / 1,769

Tokyo Electric Power / 1,659

Denso / 1,100

Oji Holdings / 1,100

Fujitsu / 3,348

Asahi Glass / 2,205

ANA / 13,119

Miura / 2,000

Hitachi / 4,200

Kashima / 5,347

Mitsukoshi-Isetan / 2,268

JX Holdings / 1,500

Shonan Belmare (the soccer club) / 5

C-Net / 4

The answer is: ________________?


Later - Yow! Mr. Shiozaki gotta a little help from his friends! (Link)

A very happy camper he must be.