“If any currency is going to appreciate over time, it will be the yen.” That is the opinion of David Bloom, currency analyst at HSBC.

And Mr Bloom is far from alone. Every month since the summer of 2003, the number of respondents to the BNP Paribas/I&PE investment managers’ expectations index predicting the yen will rise against the US dollar has outweighed those predicting a fall, while a net 56 per cent of respondents to the June Merrill Lynch fund managers’ survey said the yen was undervalued.