Japan’s famed ‘bedroom’ trader Takashi Kotegawa is one of its most famous intra day traders,who made a fortune from trading stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the early 2000s. Apparently he grew a small account of roughly $13,600 to $153 million in just about 8 years! In fact sometimes he even made millions per trade. Now, driven by ambition, he sets his sights on achieving billionaire status.
Also known in the Japanese trading community by his chatroom username “BNF” and often nicknamed as“J-Com man”, Takashi Kotegawa was born on March 5, 1978, in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan. He reportedly started trading stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the bear market of 2001.Despite being a multi-millionaire and one of the most popular intra day trader in Japan, he is believed to be a humble guy and doesn’t buy fancy cars or eat lavish meals.
However, one thing that he reportedly did splurge on, was a top-floor apartment that he bought for a whopping 400 million yen.
BNF's path was far from easy. As a college student, he faced financial constraints like many others, striving to make ends meet. However, he possessed an unwavering determination to outperform the financial system.
The moniker "BNF" originated from his admiration for Victor Niederhoffer, an American hedge fund manager who incurred significant losses in the stock market. Takashi Kotegawa adopted the abbreviation as a tribute to his mentor.
BNF, a broke 20-year-old college student, developed an interest in the stock market after watching a television news segment. He resolved to learn technical analysis (TA) and conquer the market to secure a more comfortable life.
For two years, BNF worked various jobs to raise capital while concurrently immersing himself in the intricacies of the stock market. His perseverance paid off, and he began investing in Japanese stocks during a bear market, where he remained calm and logical amidst widespread fear and panic.
In 2005, Takashi made millions through a single trade in J-Com Holdings after its IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
That opportunity was thanks to an error committed by a trader at Mizuho Securities, who accidentally sold 610,000 shares at one yen each instead of selling one share at 610,000 yen! That huge sell order sent the stock price crashing, and ofcourse, Takashi saw an opportunity over there.
He bought 7,100 shares while the price was down. While he chose to sell a part of his position in the bounce and held some shares overnight, he had reportedly made more than $17 million at the end of that trade.
It's natural to wonder about the ‘magic’ strategy that Takashi used to make millions in the stock market. But all that's been clear till day due to the absence of adequate details about it. Neither does he share every trade publicly nor much information at all about how he made his millions.
But apparently, it's believed that he thinks that it’s easier to make money in bear markets than in bull markets, and looks for short-term rebound plays in stocks that are down.
Through discipline, consistency, rationality, determination, and focus, BNF achieved remarkable success. Within two years, he transformed his initial investment of $13,600 into an impressive $15 million, which marked only the beginning of his extraordinary trading journey.
Regrettably, BNF once deviated from his trading rules and principles by investing in U.S. stocks instead of Japanese stocks. Based on a misguided assumption that U.S. bank shares were collapsing, he made a substantial investment in bank shares during the housing market crash. This move resulted in a loss of over $10 million, teaching him a valuable lesson about the importance of adhering to his trading principles.
Some people describe Takashi Kotegawa’s trading strategy as divergence day trading, wherein he uses indicators like Bollinger Bands, Relative Strength Index (RSI), volume ratio, and the 25-day moving average for decision making. He also supposedly likes to buy stocks that are at least 20% below the 25-day moving average and then profit from the bounce.
And, since the markets constantly change, he tends to adapt the percentage he looks for based on the overall market and individual sectors. He also gets a feel for how stocks in different sectors move and how fast they rebound, and then accordingly takes his decisions.
More importantly, like all day traders, he too likes to capitalize on momentum, especially when the market is down.
