The Nikkei Shimbun Quotes Curtis Milhaupt on How US Stocks Attract Japanese Investment
The Nikkei Shimbun Quotes Curtis Milhaupt on How US Stocks Attract Japanese Investment
Japanese capital is flowing rapidly into U.S. markets to back AI, tech IPOs, and data infrastructure.
In its June 20, 2026, edition, the Nikkei Shimbun's Market Beat financial analysis column, titled US Stocks Attract Japanese Money, examines how the U.S. stock market is becoming a "major league" that is increasingly attracting capital from Japanese individual investors. Several factors drive this phenomenon:
- Massive IPOs: Unprecedentedly large IPOs, as seen by SpaceX, are capturing global attention and investment.
- Structural Advantages: U.S. markets are moving fast to include new, large companies in major stock indices, which forces index-tracking funds to buy shares and creates automatic demand.
- 24-Hour Trading: U.S. exchanges like the NYSE and Nasdaq are moving toward near 24-hour trading to specifically capture Asian daytime investors, making it easier for them to participate.
The column describes how Japanese investors are increasingly bypassing domestic options to capture the immense growth driven by American AI, data infrastructure, and advanced technology IPOs. "Founders and early-stage investors prefer large-scale markets that offer price discovery, liquidity, and visibility. This is likely to accelerate the concentration of innovative companies in the United States," says Curtis Milhaupt, the William F. Baxter-Visa International Professor of Law and APARC faculty affiliate.
The article notes that the speculative nature of advanced tech sectors inevitably fuels market volatility and could pose risks for Japanese investors looking across the Pacific, urging Japanese investors to identify promising domestic companies.