Abenomics fuels demand for Japan traders Japan's new stimulus policies have led to a sharp revival in demand for traders in Japanese bonds, equities and currencies, with "Abenomics" fuelling trading volumes in those markets. After a year of cutbacks among foreign institutions, headhunters are reporting a jump in hiring mandates. Japan had been dire until last December, but activity has really picked up. April has been a very good month," said Andy Willner of New Millennium Group in Hong Kong. Yoshiki Kumazawa at search firm Morgan McKinley in Tokyo, which works mostly with the global bulge-bracket firms, said banks had started to recruit specialists in Japanese government bond trading and product structuring. The return in hiring activity by banks, brokers and fund managers comes as the daily trading value on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's first section in April has averaged around Y3.15tn, close to the record level logged for a full month in February 2007. Foreign investors are pouring money into Tokyo, with net buying of Japanese equities by overseas investors, for example, rising above Y1tn in the first week of March - the highest weekly figure in Tokyo Stock Exchange records dating back to 1982. In the foreign exchange market, there has also been a surge in yen-related trading volumes. This contrasts with the past few years, when trading in Japan-related markets suffered after the Fukushima earthquake in 2011. The slump in activity caused foreign institutions to reduce drastically their headcount in Tokyo amid an overall move among western banks to cut back on overseas operations. At the end of 2012, total employees at securities companies stood at a 36-year low of 84,802, down 10 per cent from June 2011 and exactly half the all-time high recorded in June 1991, according to figures compiled by the Japan Securities Dealers Association. With volumes jumping on the back of the shift in monetary policy, however, many foreign institutions, especially those that had retrenched, had been caught short, said headhunters. At investments banks, demand for institutional sales people in fixed income and foreign exchange are expected to increase in the coming weeks, while many asset managers, without Japan specialists are now looking for fund managers and analysts. Nao Batangan, a manager at Michael Page, said so far this year 71 per cent of the placements within the group's Tokyo-based markets and fund management division had been in asset management, compared with 28 per cent in 2012. Although some of the large foreign banks remain reluctant to add permanent staff in Tokyo, having just gone through a big round of cuts, there are signs that some are pushing headquarters in London and New York to add more people. "Firms want to see consistent growth in results over a couple of quarters," said Guy Howard, a senior manager covering financial services at Hays. But what we're hearing is that a lot of firms are getting ready to hire, and starting to get approvals a bit more easily. Additional reporting by Alice Ross in London and Josh Noble in Hong Kong