Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba may be somewhat incompetent as a politician and diplomat, but as an investor, he is an outstanding figure, having outperformed the benchmark index of the Japanese stock market in recent years.

According to analysis from Nomura Securities, since the beginning of 2020, Ishiba's individual stock portfolio has increased by about 102%, far exceeding the 60% rise of the Tokyo Stock Price Index during the same period.

The Prime Minister's stock market performance also surpasses that of all members of his cabinet, including Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato and Economic Minister Yoji Muto, whose portfolio returns are 83% and 53%, respectively.

Shigeru Ishiba, who was re-elected Prime Minister by a narrow margin after an early election, has been struggling with low approval ratings and negative headlines that damage his image. The latest polls show that only 31% support his cabinet. He was recently discovered sleeping in parliament, having missed a photo opportunity with other world leaders at the APEC summit held in Brazil this month.

This Prime Minister, reportedly obsessed with military equipment, holds seven stocks, including Japan's two largest defense contractors.$Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (7011.JP)$And.$Kawasaki Heavy Industries (7012.JP)$Since japan indicated in 2022 that it would double the proportion of its defense budget to GDP, the stocks of these two companies have surged.

Shigeru Ishiba also holds shares in $Nippon Steel (5401.JP)$ , which is involved in a highly politicized acquisition worth billions of dollars.$United States Steel (X.US)$This trade.

Nomura Securities' analysis was conducted after the disclosure of asset holdings by Shinzo Abe's cabinet members last week. Disclosure requirements date back to the 1970s, when then-prime minister Kakuei Tanaka was arrested for his involvement in bribery scandals with the aerospace manufacturer Lockheed and several prominent japanese companies.

Japanese cabinet ministers are prohibited from trading stocks, real estate, and other assets while in office. Nomura Securities analysts found that the investment portfolios of these ministers have remained largely unchanged since 2020. They also compared Shinzo Abe's current portfolio with the one disclosed during his last term as a cabinet minister in 2016, finding minimal changes.

The analysis revealed that by tracking the average roi of japanese cabinet members' stock investments since 2020, five performed better than the tokyo stock exchange index, seven underperformed, and two were roughly even with the benchmark index. The analysis mainly focused on their holdings in large companies, including stocks held by their spouses.

The worst-performing stock picker in the cabinet includes the Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare, whose department is ultimately responsible for the 1.45 trillion dollar government pension investment fund, which is the largest retirement savings fund globally.

Tomochika Kitaoka, a stock strategist at Nomura Securities, stated that it is very important for cabinet members, as individual investors, to set an example, given that successive governments have struggled to encourage Japanese households to shift their cash savings to risk assets.

He pointed out that former Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, who announced his resignation in August this year, did not hold any stocks at all.

However, Kitaoka stated that, given the restrictions on cabinet members' trading activities, investors should not have "excessively high expectations" regarding the stocks they own.

An official from the Prime Minister's Office of Japan declined to comment on Shigeru Ishiba's stock portfolio but noted that promoting Japan as an asset management center is one of the new government's policies.

Editor/rice