I’ve been casually looking into investing for the past few years here in Tokyo and haven’t really found a good way to go about it. During the crypto boom I tried signing up for an account with a Japanese crypto exchange and they rejected me, and most recently SMBC called me to try and sell me some of their investment products but when I went to meet with them they said they couldn’t introduce me the products because I am not a Japanese citizen (I don’t even know if what she was saying was true tbh). All she ended up introducing me was a Prestia account for foreign currency exchange.
So I thought I would turn to the Reddit hive mind, and as the title says – anyone with experience investing here in Japan, what would you do with ¥10,000,000? Thanks and looking forward to your input!
For reference I am a US citizen, on a work visa here, and am married to a Japanese citizen.
13 comments
There aren’t really any good investing options for a U.S. citizen living in Japan. That’s my understanding at least. I think both the Japanese and US government will end up taxing you on any profits you make, if I understand things correctly.
In my case I’d just sign up for an online broker with low fees and dollar cost averaging the sum in a S&P500 tracker with very low fees over the coming year (maybe split in 12 installments).
This is not financial advice and I am not a professional.
Open a brokerage in the US, send money there, buy whatever you want depending on your investing strategy and risk tolerance. If you like crypto, I’d say toss 5% into BTC and the rest into an S&P500 fund unless you have your own plan already.
I would never try to invest with those that rejects me. Their loss. You can try rakuten shouken. I had account with them for long time with no problem. I even signed up then forgot about it for years. No issue.
There is /Japanesefinance. From doing some reading here, for most Americans it is hard to buy U.S. stocks in Japan. I would open a brokerage account at Vanguard, Schwab, Fidelity and just buy a low cost index fund like the total stock market index, and set it and forget it. I get dividends around $2k every year, but I keep it below the $13k standard deduction rate so I don’t have to pay taxes on it.
Probably better to invest in the US somehow. PFIC reporting is about as much fun as getting a root canal.
If you were not American I would advise buying ¥10m of S&P500 index funds. Preferably something with a very low fee. Preferably in a tax advantaged account.
Then forget about it for 20-45 years until you retire.
Maybe r/japanfinance will be of more help to you.
Open a rakuten securities account and buy some GameStop. Now is the perfect time!
As a US person, you’re limited. At a japanese broker, you can buy japanese or other foreign stocks, but nothing US (not stocks, not ETFs).
The supposedly US funds that are sold here (eg, something from vanguard) are in a ‘wrapper’ such that they are likely PFICs (and if you don’t know what those are, do some reading. Even some japanese stocks (the ones that are holding companies) are PFICs. And stay completely away from the popular eMaxis funds, or any kind of mutual fund–all PFICs.
It is near impossible to set up a US brokerage account from outside the US. This is due to rules from dept. of treasury and homeland security, which while not impossible, make it very unappealing for this brokers to deal with US citizens abroad. There are expensive compliance issues that make us too much trouble to deal with–so many brokers, if they find out or know you’re abroad, will ask you to close the account (eg, 60-90 days). There are a couple which do not do this, but those also are not taking new accounts, only letting past accounts ride (having been grandfathered in).
Some folks might recommend using a family member’s address, tho that is very likely against the broker’s terms of service. Also, the know your customer process is always more difficult than just having a US address (what is your employer’s name, what bank accounts do you have).
Recently, the one go-to broker, Interactive Brokers (IB), was offering US accounts. But they closed it to new accounts last May, and people are now getting letters from them something to the effect that they have to change to the japan subsidiary of IB. I don’t have an account with them, but search here or at r/JapanFinance as there have been some recent threads.
Good luck!
I’d invest it into my garden and my Warhammer collection most likely.
I’m boring and have about 30 stocks but if I was starting over I’d follow the simple 3-stock investing theory. https://www.bogleheads.org/wiki/Three-fund_portfolio. Honestly it’s already what I’m mainly doing for 90% of my capital and the other 10% is my fun investment money…
I’ve been holding high yielding dividend shares for over 15 years now, mostly oil companies. I managed to top up during covid so my quarterly dividend payments are pretty juicy now, it’s like a bonus for me. I would scrip dividend but being an alt I need the $$$. Basically buy high yielding dividends or blue chip and hold long term.
I would buy Bitcoin. If not possible, real physical gold.
If you ever buy crypto after managing to find an exchange:
1. Don’t buy shitcoin (only Bitcoin), most are legalized scams
2. Move it out of exchange to your own wallet. No matter the regulations and safe guard, assume they will lose or block you out of your money
Anything less and you will lose all your money in the long run with near certainty.
If you don’t understand what I say, stay away from crypto until you do. Or just go in more traditional markets.