Japanese daytrading for foreigners

Hello everyone,

I have been daytrading US stocks for about 10 years. Reading this thread, I am still a bit confused.

Is it possible to day trade Japanese stocks?

I know there is a debate in regards to short sells, so not looking for that answer.

My question is more in regards to intraday volatility and liquidity?

Since I am in the US and given the time difference, I could only trade the "Morning Session". As I understand it, they have a break before their "afternoon session".

Given this restraint in trading hours, is it safe to assume their "morning session" has enough volatility to create trading opportunities for an experienced day trader?

I am a scalper and most of my strategies are geared towards volume based indicators and signals. Obviously, they work just fine in the US market, but will like to test them in the Japanese equity market.

I would appreciate any insights from traders here, with actual experience in day trading (only) japanese stocks.

Thanks a lot for the help
 
the primary issue is using a broker with commission suitable for daytrading for a non-resident, then short sale is secondary issue. some idiot messed up the original discussion, so you can ignore most of the posts.
 
Thanks blueraincap,

But assuming those two things you pointed out are not a problem for me, then my question stands:

Is it a feasible endeavour to daytrade japanese stocks during their "morning session" only? Is there enough volatility? Is there acceptable liquidity in the most followed stocks over there?

Thanks
 
afajtr said:
Given this restraint in trading hours, is it safe to assume their "morning session" has enough volatility to create trading opportunities for an experienced day trader?

I am a scalper and most of my strategies are geared towards volume based indicators and signals. Obviously, they work just fine in the US market, but will like to test them in the Japanese equity market.
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I think that your question about both volume and volatility is a bit difficult to answer. What is enough volume/volatility for one trader might be insufficient for another. Probably you would need to download some historical data from the morning sessions (09:00~11:30 JST) and run your own backtest.
 
afajtr said:
Is it a feasible endeavour to daytrade japanese stocks during their "morning session" only? Is there enough volatility? Is there acceptable liquidity in the most followed stocks over there?
More...
Absolutely. There are more day traders here in Japan than there are fleas on a pack of dogs. Have you read my earlier posts? If not. you'll see that IB will be the only broker you can use. And I'm guessing that you don't have an IB account, as you could have screened Japanese stocks in intraday charts to answer your own question.
 
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A lot of japanese stocks are illiquid but there are enough liquid ones to daytrade. there is no liquidity rebates btw. TSE fee is reasonably low and no stamp duty, so broker commission is the key cost to control if you are as short term as me such that every bp matters.
 
MoneyMatthew said:
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.
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From personal experience, the points about high commissions, lack of liquidity, transaction taxes are not true for Japanese stocks. I use Interactive brokers. Commission is lower compared to Hong Kong and Australian stocks. Liquidity is better. Zero transaction taxes for Japanese stocks.

Transaction taxes are a big problem for European stocks but certainly not Japanese stocks. 0.2% for Italian stocks, 0.3% for French stocks and the worst, 0.5% for UK stocks.
 
learner2007 said:
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.
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Very surprised by the super-low commission rates of local brokers. How the hell do they survive? I thought IBKR was efficient enough. I guess the Japanese brokers are just as competitive.
 
helpme_please said:
From personal experience, the points about high commissions, lack of liquidity, transaction taxes are not true for Japanese stocks. I use Interactive brokers. Commission is lower compared to Hong Kong and Australian stocks. Liquidity is better. Zero transaction taxes for Japanese stocks.

Transaction taxes are a big problem for European stocks but certainly not Japanese stocks. 0.2% for Italian stocks, 0.3% for French stocks and the worst, 0.5% for UK stocks.
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commission is lower than hk but still high. maybe ok for you if you hold for weeks, if you do intraday the commission sets you back 10bps immediately
 
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