@dirtcheapbanks I bought this two days ago, always good to get in one of these before the release since your stuff does move the market on these micro caps.
They are clearly lining this one up for a sale.
Sad reality is that’s way lower than min wage given prep and downtime but there are probably huge excess applicants from the Phillipines anyway.
You can say the wage is too low but of these schools don’t make a profit and management isn’t paid well either. There’s no demand to support a higher price.
Low growth low productivity weak currency borrow and print policy high regulatory burden Japanese government is the real one to blame.
@orrdavid Below like 50B market cap there is no passive bid in these things not many activists, and almost no fundamental funds. All marginal holders are retail. When someone sells to fund buying in an AI bottleneck stock the price of these things has to come down.
@0yveyy@orrdavid SBI is probably fine because banks are excluded and their substantial banking revenues and assets save you from the part of it that's basically equity stakes in other banks. But Hikari Tsushin is def a PFIC and should be avoided if you are from the the US.
@AltayCapital@tesuto_777 As someone who holds a few of these including two Fukuoka banks that trade at ~25% of tangible book let me assure you that the non Tokyo listings will be the last companies in the world to reform and return capital.
@JamieHalse They are just pounding me with spacex ads on my SBI securities account. Have seen nothing like it.
To be honest though this might have a better chance of working out than the typical Japanese IPO they promote…
🚨 One of the oldest signals of a market top just flashed in South Korea.
South Koreans are cashing out their insurance policies and savings deposits to pile into the local stock rally.
Not redirecting new savings. Cashing out existing ones. Early. At a loss.
The numbers:
– Policy surrender payouts at Korea's three largest life insurers (Samsung Life, Hanwha Life, Kyobo Life) hit 4.9 trillion won, about $3.3 billion, in Q1
– Up 16.3% from a year earlier
– A surrendered policy pays back less than the premiums you paid in. These people are accepting a guaranteed loss to chase the market.
Read that again.
They are breaking their own safety nets, taking a known loss on the way out, because they cannot stand watching stocks rise without them.
This is what the top of a cycle feels like. Not the bottom.
History rhymes here, loudly:
– 1929: ordinary people borrowed against everything to buy stocks
– 1999: people quit their jobs to day-trade dot-coms
– 2021: stimulus checks poured into meme stocks and crypto at the peak
The pattern never changes. In the final innings, the safest money in the system — the pension, the savings account, the insurance policy — gets pulled out and thrown at the hottest thing in the room.
The people doing it feel late. They feel like they're finally catching up.
They are usually right on time to be the last buyer.
When the most conservative savers surrender guaranteed value to chase a rally, that rally is no longer early.
It's looking for an exit.
@mrjeffu Look I am a righty and I still support Trump mostly.
This poster is racist as F like literal KKK level. No place for this in developed world government.
@urayoko2024 Why wouldn't they just put her on the English path instead. Any 6/10 could get with a corporate middle manager in the US, who makes more than the president of most Japanese companies and would probably treat her better also.
Crazy part is this. 25 years ago Japan had less debt and their wages were competitive or higher than the US. Soft power you had peak DBZ and Pokémon. Plus back then even J-Pop was big. Tons of people would have moved to Japan in a flash if it was promoted. They could have just given work visas to any rich country person that wanted to come. To make this work they would have needed to reform employment of course. To where you could get hired for something semi decent not out of college. Instead you had to go the English route to come, which was ok for most of this time but not great for serious people.
Over a 5-10 year period they could have let in 5 million immigrants from wealthy English speaking countries that would have badly wanted to learn Japanese and worked hard and paid taxes. Instead of printing money for roads to nowhere they could have funded the language and employment transition into Japan for these people. With reform they could have had a mix of young and mid career workers. Likely would have ended up far more productive as well. Frankly 2001 US was more productive and technologically advanced than Japan is now.
The country would have 10-15 million more people now. Population growing not declining. Pension premiums would be way lower. Probably wouldn’t have had to raise consumption taxes. Ok, the new people would be white but white people are seen as superior in Japan anyway.
Now they have the same problem as they had 25 years ago, except now, but no one with skills or options is going to come to work for eight bucks an hour. You can make more at Starbucks than a Tokyo U new grad. They are mostly going to get either criminals or people with very low prospects from poor and dangerous countries. And they deserve it.
@UnseenJapanSite Even if prices were lowered for women’s goods which makes no sense anyway, women would just buy more stupid unneeded stuff to compensate. A jevons paradox of sorts.
@brianluidog I went, from Japan with other Japanese people, just to eat the food and came back satisfied. Taiwanese people are also extremely friendly. Other aspects were unimpressive.
@MikeFritzell Dead business but a few Japanese department stores actually have huge hidden real estate value and have been activist targets Korea might be similar.
@orrdavid There's a story on the internet about Hikari Tsushin new hire orientation. Bus to unknown isolated area. First day a military screaming contest in a gym. The next day was a 30 km march through the mountains in groups everyone had to make it or all failed. Only like 10% passed.