Institutional aversion puts Japan rally at risk

The recent rally in Japanese equities will likely stabilise or reverse sharply depending on whether domestic institutional investors enter or refrain from the market, says Dutch fund house Robeco. Japan's equity market is outperforming neighbouring Asian nations by a wide margin –  the Nikkei is up almost 40% year-to-date, compared with China’s benchmark CSI300 Index, which is down nearly 10%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng, down 7%. While Robeco, which oversees €189 billion ($242 bi…