Japanese daytrading for foreigners

[MoneyMatthew]

I can give you a very short answer to why I am so negative on the Japanese market:

Japanese politicians and business leaders are incredibly arrogant and still have not hit the wall. They feel they innovate (very few nich markets are such as fanuc), they feel they innovate but they don't understand consumer needs anymore and instead create stuff and brainwash Japanese consumer of a need for stupid products. Look at Nintendo. It took them 2 decades to open up their game library to other platforms. Their hardware inventions over the past 10 years is ridiculous. Look at Sony. Look at Panasonic or Toshiba or Sharp. All completely misread the international and Japanese market and demand.

The stock market in particular is riddled with short sell restrictions en Masse, small stocks are manipulated by the mafia, especially small property developers and pachinko stocks. Look at Glee, a company that is built entirely on gaming addiction and making users shell out hundreds if not thousands of dollars for in app purchases. Then commission cost to trade are sky high. Illiquid stocks en Masse. And transaction taxes. Need to list more?

This is a thread about day trading/short term trading so I am not sure how relevant your fundamental long term views are with Nintendo and their hardware intentions over the last 10 years. I know it was just an example of one of the problems you have with that market as a whole but if you are a day trader trying to flip shares you really don't care about those sorts of things.

However, your points about high commissions, lack of liquidity, transaction taxes and the many short sell restrictions are valuable info. Thanks for sharing that. I think your response has persuaded me along with many of the other folks that will read this thread.

 

[HobbyTrading]

I would guess that many traders in Europe or USA would be bothered by the time difference. Daytrading the Japanese exchanges would be a nightly activity. Difficult to stay alert during those hours.

 

[Zzzz1]

Even the fundamental issues are directly related to day trading because they factor into the poor liquidity and who provides the liquidity. Shandy players in a lot of small stocks and a complete lack of foreign interest for the precise fundamental reasons I posted.

This is a thread about day trading/short term trading so I am not sure how relevant your fundamental long term views are with Nintendo and their hardware intentions over the last 10 years. I know it was just an example of one of the problems you have with that market as a whole but if you are a day trader trying to flip shares you really don't care about those sorts of things.

However, your points about high commissions, lack of liquidity, transaction taxes and the many short sell restrictions are valuable info. Thanks for sharing that. I think your response has persuaded me along with many of the other folks that will read this thread.

 

[learner2007]

However, your points about high commissions, lack of liquidity, transaction taxes and the many short sell restrictions are valuable info. Thanks for sharing that. I think your response has persuaded me along with many of the other folks that will read this thread.

Well before you are swayed by Zzzz1's mistaken statements which are obviously born from his dislike of the country and its people which is typical of foreigners who could not make it here, please be informed that liquidity is NOT a problem, any more than it would be for stocks
in the U.S. or elsewhere that have a very small float. If you have no choice but to use IB, the commission is high compared to the local brokers which can be as low as ￥0 for margin accounts. But if you do the math you'll see that day trading is entirely possible even with IB.
Inventory for short selling thru IB may or may not be a problem.

 

[learner2007]

A few years ago I spent a few days taking at look daytrading Japanese Stocks. One of the interesting things that happens is the daily break, "lunch break???". The market closes for one hour and then reopens. What I found is movements in the last few minutes of trading that were far from being normally distributed.

That is often dependent on the movement of the yen, and arbitrage. Many day traders just avoid trading the last/first 10 minutes before/after lunch. The lunch break used to be 2 hours. There is still talk of eliminating the lunch break.

It would be nice to trade a market without constant HFTs picking people off...I would like to think a human could still do that in Japan

While HFT makes up over 60% of the volume, you shouldn't find it to be the problem that you can experience in the U.S. for stocks and futures.

 

[Zzzz1]

That is ridiculous. My wife is Japanese, I have tons of Japanese friends, I love my in laws more than my own family. I lived in Japan for many years. I have respect for its culture and values, though I don't agree with all of them. Just because I look at reality how politicians sold out to big corporations and because I refuse to wear rose tinted glasses does not make me dislike Japan. I speak fluent Japanese by the way. How could I not make it there?i posses an unlimited life long visa to work and live in Japan and never relied on a spouse visa because i worked fully employed during my whole time on Japan. The only reason I moved to Hongkong was work related.

You should know a person a little better before you shoot someone down with your erroneous judgment. You could not be more wrong about me

Well before you are swayed by Zzzz1's mistaken statements which are obviously born from his dislike of the country and its people which is typical of foreigners who could not make it here, please be informed that liquidity is NOT a problem, any more than it would be for stocks
in the U.S. or elsewhere that have a very small float. If you have no choice but to use IB, the commission is high compared to the local brokers which can be as low as ￥0 for margin accounts. But if you do the math you'll see that day trading is entirely possible even with IB.
Inventory for short selling thru IB may or may not be a problem.

 

[Golden Retriever Trading]

You must not have been using the platforms that the brokers have been providing since 1998 where the DOM is updated in real time and orders are placed with 1 click on the DOM or chart.



Your example using NEC is poor as it is a large capital stock that is sluggish and not appropriate for day trading. There are more than enough stocks to day trade here with sufficient volatility, liquidity, and the minimum spread of 1 yen. You might want to look into that more deeply.

Which broker/ platform is that? Do you live in japan?

 

[Zzzz1]

By the way most front ends of any Japanese broker are super simplistic and outright naive. Many are still web-based. IT skills are sorely lacking in Japan which is reflected on every corporate website in Japan. Go to the shinsei bank account website. You feel you arrived in the year 2000. Not one Japanese bank for example allows online wire transfers, at least last time I checked.

Your claim about no issues with liquidity are outright wrong. Anything beyond the top 100 names in section1 you will deal with liquidity issues. And shorting Japanese names? Good luck. Even when you get to locate inventory you are fighting uphill with the myriad of short sell restrictions.

Well before you are swayed by Zzzz1's mistaken statements which are obviously born from his dislike of the country and its people which is typical of foreigners who could not make it here, please be informed that liquidity is NOT a problem, any more than it would be for stocks
in the U.S. or elsewhere that have a very small float. If you have no choice but to use IB, the commission is high compared to the local brokers which can be as low as ￥0 for margin accounts. But if you do the math you'll see that day trading is entirely possible even with IB.
Inventory for short selling thru IB may or may not be a problem.

 

[learner2007]

Which broker/ platform is that? Do you live in japan?

That one is from Kabu.com. The brokers here provide 10 levels, or you can get the entire DOM if you want it.

 

[learner2007]

You should know a person a little better before you shoot someone down

Yeah well I haven't heard such negativity since the 1960's. And your negative attitude spills over into misleading the OP and others. The OP was asking for information on day trading, and you make irrelevant statements about your feelings regarding politicians etc. and sounding quite bitter overall.