Investors have been underweight Japan for decades, but conditions on the ground have changed meaningfully. Amid improving fundamentals and governance reforms, we believe it’s time to close the gap and take advantage of the attractive opportunity among small-to-mid cap Japanese companies.

Japan has been stuck in a low growth, low inflation (and at times, deflationary) environment.

Most global equity managers today are underweight Japan.

Global stocks and bonds are both expensive. U.S. stocks are trading at particularly elevated valuations with the CAPE ratio standing at 35x (vs. a 10-year average of less than 27x) while the Barclays Bloomberg U.S. Aggregate index offered a negative real yield at the end of February.

While the passive balanced portfolio (60% stock/40% bond) has outperformed more diversified allocations over the last decade, we believe investors should temper their expectations for a repeat. Two key problems lie ahead for such a portfolio.

In a new GMO Insights piece titled “Emerging Market Stocks: Getting Comfortable with the Uncomfortable,” asset allocation team member Rick Friedman looks at how lackluster emerging market equity returns in recent years have led many investors to write off the asset class, but GMO “humbly suggest(s) investors get more comfortable owning the uncomfortable.”

The duration and magnitude of value’s recent underperformance has caused many to ask once again if value investing is no longer effective. While it is possible that secular shifts have helped to compress value’s premium relative to its long-term history, we believe most of the recent decline can be traced to more transitory factors.

A small group of technology stocks have recently delivered stellar returns. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Alphabet (Google), the so-called “FAANG” stocks, are up 36% on average year to date through September. This superlative performance, in such a narrow group of large cap names, has led many to raise questions about the current valuation of the S&P 500, its sector composition, and comparisons to other markets.

After a decade of lagging relative returns, value equities delivered impressive performance in 2016, outperforming growth stocks by 10% in the US.

Investors have a tendency to prefer home cooking when it comes to their stock portfolios. In the latest GMO Asset Allocation Insights, Rick Friedman writes that US-based investors are paying steep prices for domestic equities. but straying from their home market presents more attractive prices.

Sluggish growth and aggressive central bank actions following the Global Financial Crisis pushed interest rates down to unprecedented levels, even negative outside the US, for longer than many would have expected.

Some investors are swearing off emerging markets in the age of President Trump. That’s a mistake, says Rick Friedman, a member of GMO’s Asset Allocation team. To these bears, “the double whammy of stimulative US fiscal policies coupled with possible protectionist barriers, makes emerging investments less attractive,” Friedman writes in a new piece “Emerging Markets: Value Trumps Headlines.”