Japan’s Day Trading Elite
August 10th, 2013Via: Bloomberg:
Murakami calls himself the smallest player in a group of seven day traders who chat with each other online, vacation together, and cumulatively buy and sell almost $100 million in stocks each day, using borrowed money to increase the size of their bets.
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“These guys are pros,” says Jesper Koll, head of Japan equity research at JPMorgan Chase (JPM) in Tokyo. “They’re acting like a proprietary trading desk at a major investment bank.”
Making money isn’t easy, Murakami says. With $100,000 in savings and no experience in the market, he started trading stocks from a desktop PC in 2005. Within two months he’d lost half his stake. He kept improving his results, but trading in Japan’s stagnant market was like trying to sail a boat without any wind—until this year. “When shares don’t move, you can’t get an opening for a trade,” he says. “Now that the market is moving, I feel like I have to make the most of it.”
