Japan Materials Sector "Analysis of global investor positioning (July,..."

Research evidence excerpt

Japan Materials Sector "Analysis of global investor positioning (July,..."

Global Research

8 July 2026ab

Japan Materials Sector Equities

JapanAnalysis of global investor positioning (July,

week 1) Basic Materials

Shunta Omura

Analyst

shunta.omura@ubs.com

By sector: Trading companies became the top long +81-3-5208 6244

The UBS Quantitative Strategy team uses proprietary UBS Crowding Factor data to Harunobu Goroh

analyse the crowding situation for individual stocks held by active funds. The crowding Analyst

index (maximum +30 – minimum -30) indicates the extent to which positions are long harunobu.goroh@ubs.com

(+) or short (-). As of 2 July, upstream chemicals saw a narrowing in long positions, while +81-3-5208 6215

positions turned long for non-ferrous metals and trading companies. Long positions Will Stephens

expanded for semiconductor materials. Steel saw an expansion in short positions. Analyst

Midstream and downstream chemicals are broadly neutral (Figure 1Chemicalsectorcrowding, Figure 2Metals&tradingcompanysectorcrowding). will.stephens@ubs.com

+852-3712 3892

Chemicals: Top long is Shin-Etsu, top short is Nippon Paint Holdings Jia Li Mok, CFA

The stocks with significantly high crowding indices included Shin-Etsu Chemical (4063, Analyst

Buy), Resonac (4004, not covered), and Nitto Denko (6988, not covered). Meanwhile, jia-li.mok@ubs.com

stocks with low indices included Nippon Paint HD (4612, Neutral), Denka (4061, not +65-6495 5772

covered), Nippon Sanso HD (4091, Buy), and Kansai Paint (4613, Neutral) (page 2,

Figure 3Crowdingrankingformaterialsstocks(chemicals,stel&non-ferousmetals,tradingcompanies)). Regarding Shin-Etsu, caution over declining PVC market conditions is strong,

but improving supply-demand conditions for silicon wafers are likely being evaluated