But just because we make our proposal to customers, it’s up to them to decide whether to make the investment or not. So having a strong customer base is important. And on top of that, the way we promote our products, the way we behave has also changed, I think it’s multiple factors which led to this improvement in the revenues for retail. I’m not so sure about what our peers are — have been up to, and we are looking at their performance, but we don’t exactly know what was behind their performance, but I think it was thanks to us strengthening our proposals and the customer base. These were the factors behind the revenue improvement. And your second point about the reopening the large investment trust and we were able to stimulate the demand for investments, and we were able to cater to the needs of customers.
At the moment, in the Japanese stock market, retail investors are making net purchases. And on the January 6, we hosted the Japan equities event. We did a seminar to explain the investment environment of the Japan decrease. And more than 1,000 people attended this webinar. So there’s very strong interest in Japan equities more so than in the past. And over the past few years, there was more interest in global equities, mainly U.S. equities. But I think there’s this sentiment of heightened interest towards Japanese equities and people are coming back to Japan equities. And within the portfolios of customers, they had been underweight on Japan equities. And this time, that we have been proposing Japan equities to diversify their portfolios, and that has led to purchases.
So we’re not planning to launch these big funds continuously, but now it just happens to be the right time, and that’s why we launched this new fund. And there are numerous financial products out there in the market, and we were able to address and we will address the customer needs and the market environment and promote the product, and we’ll continue to strengthen our product proposals. Thank you.
Koichi Niwa: Thank you very much. Regarding the first point, may I make a follow-up, please. Over the three months, maybe there isn’t much clear trend. But on Page 7 of the presentation, bottom right, you get the hit products, it’s the U.S. growth stocks, high yield. And so these are somewhat contrarian, I think. But in terms of customer needs and customer characteristics, how do you see it at the moment? And yes, I understand how these products were popular among those customers. But when you look at the recent hit products, how do you analyze the appetite of investors.
Takumi Kitamura: Thank you. This is Kitamura. For U.S. equities, the reason why they were popular is, as you pointed out, Niwa-san, it was more of a contrarian approach, I think. And there was a big correction in U.S. equities. In meanwhile, there is strong expectations for growth in the U.S. So when investors want to build their assets over the mid to long term, they wanted to add a position to their U.S. equities, U.S. growth stocks as part of their portfolio, I think. And as for high yields, we have a very strong track record in this area. And we have been diversifying our investments about 700 , I think, is the diversification and has been maintaining very strong performance and the interest rate situation is changing. And the currency has stabilized quite a bit from the past. So interest rates remain high and some investors want to buy these types of products, I think.
Koichi Niwa: Understood. Thank you. Thank you for your thorough answer. Thank you very much.
