In 2006...Japanese tech stocks will be hot, hot, hot

Japan's stockmarket is back in vogue and the country is proving as adept as ever at creating hi-tech gadgets that we want to buy. Pelham Smithers of Kensington Research reveals five Japanese tech stocks that should do well in the year ahead.

The future is an impossible place. Every year the world's financial pundits have a go at forecasting it and pretty much every year they are wrong. Indeed, if they had any sense they'd have given up long ago. Still, they haven't, and no one appears to mind much if they keep getting it wrong the financial commentary market seems to be a remarkably forgiving place. With this in mind, we've asked some of our writers and some of our favourite analysts to tell us what they think might happen during 2006...

The Japanese stockmarket is back in vogue and the country is proving as adept as ever at creating products that we, or as often as not our children, want to buy, writes Pelham Smithers, something that makes technology shares a good place to be, just as it was in 2005. Then, Toyota's shares did well on the hybrid car theme, Murata's stock rose on the increased use of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones, Matsushita's did well on the flat screen TV boom, and Toshiba's rose on strong sales of the flash memory chips that drive everything from your digital camera to your iPod Nano. So what will be the themes that will make money in 2006? Here are five key stories of 2006 and what could be the best plays on them.

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