ニチダイ Nichidai is my latest foray into the Tokyo mart, after Rokko Butter 六甲バター & Seiwa Chuo 清和中央 earlier this week

 At a 26.8% discount to its trading range after listing in 2000, when its NTA was just ¥550 & its revenue having increased 43% in the last quarter century, I figured Nichidai ニチダイ was a good purchase 7 years after it was ramped furiously from ¥600 to an all-time zenith of ¥3980 & has deflated 91% since then, while said NTA has more than doubled [ & 54% higher than the ¥787 figure in '12]  & CAR has improved from 41% in 2003 to over 72% now [ & 43% higher than the 52.4% in '12], accompanied by a 30% increase in total assets. 

Nichidai when it re-wrote its '06 record of ¥1,600 in early '18 & subsequent plummet, where it traded slightly more than its entire issued share count on 28th Mar '18!

On the flip side, ROE has gone from 8% to below 1% while dividend has shrunk by almost 2/3rds to ¥6 per share & its full-year EPS is projected to be -ve ¥26.2 but is still less than half the quantum of loss in '22 & '23. I'm guessing that with net cash at ¥145 per share & Grahamian net-net at ¥406 per share, there is limited downside despite the, hopefully temporary, -ve quarterly operating cashflow.

 As for the latter two, I bought them betting that investors would eventually chase the prices up approaching the Dec 29th 2025 ex-dividend dates, with a 9-week runway to accommodate the ascent, the October danger period being almost in the rearview mirror and the Nikkei index in a superbull phase, beating any major developed market index since July!

  Rokko Butter has been in business since Dec 1948 yet strangely has never produced actual butter in-house, but is 95% into milk-derivative cheesemaking. Mitsubishi has been a 15% shareholder for a long time & was engaged in expanding the sales network 66 years ago. Forecast EPS for the coming year is 15% higher & its CAR went over 60% last year while maintaining total assets at over ¥ 50 billion.

   

Seiwa Chuo is in steel trading focused on construction, and the share price, at its stratospheric height in July 2007 touched ¥ 24,000, when its predecessor, Osaka-based Seiwa Kogyo, merged with eastern Japan-based Chuo Kozai, up from ¥ 381 in 2004 when the former's results were already improving tremendously. Book value per share has advanced from just below ¥ 2,000 over 2 decades ago to ¥ 3,991 now & is trading just above its post-listing high of ¥1,550 in 1997, with lows of ¥ 203 & ¥ 1,248 separated by 24 years [ '00 & '24 ],

   After narrowly missing out on buying it in the ¥1,300 range last year, I still had luck in snagging a hundred shares at ¥ 1,568 [ -4.68% ] on 27th Oct when some random person dumped a thousand down to as low as  ¥1,550 & almost as abruptly, 9/10 of that amount was picked up from ¥1,628 to a closing high of  ¥1,660; the stock hasn't traded a single unit since 300 shares changed hands between ¥1,620 & ¥1,660 on the 29th.

Local trading ideas: Menang, NHFatt, MUH, TGuan, GCB, Minho, Gadang, KYM, Coastal, Danco, Success, Wong, CTOS, Power

Beyond 5 Years : Nestlé Returns for an 8th time after L & G Advances to 9x a Winner in '25 {30th-31st Oct '25}

 

Fortunately, the former not only stays well above my original dream target of $100, but reaches nearly 2-year highs above $113 & is sold down to 3 shares while the latter was pared down to 23,360 shares yesterday to further cut my margin debt by 75% since Sep 26th!

Beyond 5 Years : L & G Scores 2 more Market Days in a Row & hands the baton to Crashing Perak Transit for 63 Full Months! {27th-29th Oct '25}

 

The latter returns for the first time since Jan 2023 as a result of my knife-catching speculative purchases on 22-23rd October from 42c down to as low as 29c [ averaging 38.576c ] & 31.5% hived at the two highest prices of the day of 40.5c & 41c to stretch the unprecedented marathon between 29th July 2020 & 29th October 2025 even as I attended my 80th shareholder meeting [ Hong Leong Capital ] , the 2nd one within 2 hours of each other in far-flung locations in the capital . The Top 3 streaks thus total 1,872 days, or over 5 calendar years' equivalent of days!!!

Client recommendation TKS 東京機械製作所, after halving since its September blowoff, goes limit-up Oct 24th: Will it reprise the '21 rocketing ?

 

TKS's frenetic gyrations in 2021

The stock was touted in this blog on July 25th & I personally put my money squarely where my mouth was

as well, at ¥388.Yesterday, it traded a mere 38,900 shares at the close due to the buy/sell imbalance at the limit up price of ¥563.This is far off the ¥889 zenith last month, but unconscionably low compared to the ¥3,720 summit on 10th Sep '21, just 2 days away from the 4th Anniversary of its, hopefully temporary, '21 high abovementioned. 

That was when there was a lot of brouhaha around Sun Hung Kai-backed shady entity Asia Development Capital [since delisted in Tokyo] clandestinely accumulating over 40% of TKS & the latter vigorously resisting a possible takeover that was likely targeting its large cash pile, via a 'poison pill' defense. Eventually, the buyout attempt was rebuffed & the predator went bust & disappeared after irregularities were discovered. Now, a quarter of the shares are held by the powerful Yomiuri Shimbun group while the ex-predator's 7.56% remnant holding has been acquired by TKS itself as treasury shares.

Early last month, TKS announced a contract awarded by the Japanese Defense Ministry & the shares went limit-up yesterday, after a month-long 48% correction, because said contract was finalized. Defense is one of the hottest sectors in the Tokyo mart in '25 and it may pay off to wait & see if more bidding in this sector by the company will eventuate in the coming months, so I am holding on despite no dividend forthcoming since 2019 ! 

Technically, the price has rounded off a saucer-type bottoming pattern & has a similar MACD indicator crossing over as has occurred 4 years ago & also in late 2012 when the Japanese Nikkei stock index was surging towards 10,000 from below it [ ridiculously cheap compared to the 5-fold inflation in that index in the past 13 years ].Oddly enough, my maiden entry is not far above the stock's 2012 low even though the aforementioned index plumbed a nadir of 8,238.96 that year & is now trading at over 9x that low! This gaping divergence is due to TKS reporting frequent losses within a string of inconsistent results as its newsprint machines fade into obsolescence in tandem with physical newspapers.

 These are exciting times for me, as my ¥ cash balance has gone over  ¥2,857,000 after never having peeked above the ¥1 million mark for the the first 8 years of my participation in Tokyo [ proudly 2 years before the Oracle of Omaha ], ergo multiplying almost fifty-fold in the last 4 months! I have the option of raising it further by 20% next week if I choose to dispose of the five Japanese stocks still sitting on paper gains [ Komai Haltec, Ichikoh, Fujisash, Shinto & TKS] , but I'll probably do it intermittently since the Nikkei has come tantalizingly close to the 50,000 barrier this past week & seems to have the strength to break it by the end of 2025. Overall cash levels has also sailed over $200,000 for the first time since 2022 & debt has shrunk 60% in just the past month & my🎌 stock tally has crossed the hitherto unattained 4-decade mark, on top of besting the total scalps [ including famous names like Toyota, NTT, Omron, Shiseido, Panasonic, Kyocera, Dentsu, Takeda & Subaru ] in my first six years trading there 40-35, bringing the cumulative conquests to 107 as of the time of writing !

Beyond 5 Years : L & G Comes Through for 1,302 Market Days in a Row ! {24th Oct '25}

 

Thanks to L & G [sold down to 54,360 shares] for a 6th helping to another record verging on 63 full months, during a year in which it seemed on the brink of ending more than a few times due to the ferocity of the local bear market!

Beyond 5 Years : Rohas Technic takes the Tally Beyond the Centuries ! {23rd Oct '25}

 

A speculative punt on new #101/'25 Rohas Technic shares on news of its bank account being frozen 2 days ago due to suspected involvement in corruption pays off today via a 2-day contra trade to bag my 101st score in '25, powering the record to 1,301 consecutive days in my unbreakable odyssey of financial freedom!🚞🏭🍾

Beyond 5 Years : Coveted Yaskawa Electric 安川電機 Takes the Honours for Multiple Milestones!!! {22 Oct '25}

 

Fabled robotics firm Yaskawa Electric 安川電機 clinches a fabulous & one-of-a-kind quartet of accolades >: the 40th 🎌 in '25, its CENTURY Stock mantle, Thirteen Hundred Consecutive Days in the stock trading income Marathon & 13 consecutive Annual Centuries, surviving many scary roller-coaster market fluctuations since '20, a day after passing the🎌500k mark for the 3rd year running & the biggest comeback there, after Trump-bling -40% at its worst level ! ⛩🗻🗾. In the afternoon, WTK is sold down to just 1,088 shares, the lowest stake since early 2017:

Stock specuvesting odyssey consecutive market day Milestones [contributors] :

100 : 22 Dec '20 [ Landmarks, MKH, MSC, Handal ]

200 : 19 May '21 [ Melati Ehsan ]

300 : 14 Oct '21 [ Emico ]

1st Ever FULL YEAR of trading income : 31 Dec '21 [ Alibaba ]

400 : 10 Mar '22 [ Unisem ]

'Unbreakable' '17-'18 record of 462 days BEATEN! : 15 Jun '22 [ MPHB Capital ]

500 : 8 Aug '22 [ KL Kepong ]

1st Ever 2 FULL YEARS trading income : 30 Dec '22 [ HapSeng ]

600 : 4 Jan '23 [ Subur Tiasa ]

700: 2 Jun '23 [ EP Manufacturing ]

800: 26 Oct '23 [ TAS Offshore ]

1st Ever 3 FULL YEARS trading income : 29 Dec '23 [ JCBNext ]

900: 22 Mar '24 [ White Horse ]

1,000: 13 Aug '24 [ YTL Power ]

1st Ever 4 FULL YEARS trading income : 31 Dec '24 [ Supermax ]

1,100: 2 Jan '25 [ Hartalega ]

1,200: 29 May '25 [ Peterlabs ]

1,300: 22 Oct '25 [Yaskawa 安川

Electric]

Beyond 5 Years : L & G Bags the Quintet ! {21st Oct '25}

 

After denying me for over a decade, Land & General delivers a fifth time today to send the record run to the brink of 13 Centuries of market days uninterrupted!!!

Yaskawa Electric 安川電機 finally springs into the black from being down 40%!

 

A rather slipshod, scantily thought out entry into the Japanese robotics enterprise just 2 days before the February dividend entitlement turned disastrous in short order as it issued a reduced profit forecast around the same time & ran into the Trumpanic tariff storm with the rest of the market, crashing to -39.7% below my cost.

Thus was the most challenging period of my 31-year investing career since 2008 : April - July 2025, where most of my investments went deeply underwater & I was left wondering how long I had to endure & whether all my hard study exceeding 20,000 hours was ultimately paying off. However, with major markets rebounding powerfully, especially from July onwards, one after another of my Japanese [ & even some Malaysian] long positions went back into the black & I was able to take surprisingly profits on some of the worst performing ones at the time of the April meltdown: Shindengen, Eisai & Dijet among many others.

After a recent raising of its profit forecast by 12% on 3rd October, Yaskawa Electric became the latest 🎌 bet to cave to my heightened positive expectation by soaring into a gain after commissions, with the two dividends picked up since entry offsetting the buy commission. What follows are snapshots of the company from 1978, 1991, 1998, 2013 & 2020 and based on revenue, EPS & dividend yield, the company is potentially anywhere from somewhat overvalued to significantly undervalued so I will likely wait for the 0.618 Fib retracement of its decline from ¥6,877 from ¥2,582 which points to  ¥5,236 as a likely target. It's unlikely I will  wait for the  ¥6,000-¥6,800 range which is the 'triple-double' top ceiling from 2018,2021 & 2023/2024 even with the Nikkei almost certain to hit 50,000 today, the 21st of October 2025!

Beyond 5 Years : A Fond Sayonara to #69 Nippon Felt 日本フエルト, Exiting completely after 94 Months !!! {20th Oct '25}

 

One of the longest dalliances with a Japanese investment finally ends after a 94-month dance that has furnished sixteen dividends [totalling over ¥22,000]; thanks to a 3rd sale at the highest level [prior to '25] since Mar '15: Nippon Felt 日本フエルトaccomodates my refusal to wait out the Festival of Lights market holiday to inch the streak closer to 13 whole Centuries!

Beyond 5 Years : Pintaras Jaya Returns after a 2024 Hat3rick & pairs with 10-time Scorer WTK ! {17th Oct '25}

 

Before 2024, new #99 Pintaras Jaya hadn't scored for a quarter century, its last contribution coming in May 1999! WTK achieves a perfect 10 rounds, sold down to 2,388 shares in one account & the run reaches 1,297 days consecutively!

Beyond 5 Years : Ten days short of the 3rd Anniversary of its last contribution, SD Guthrie Scores Again ! {16th Oct '25}

 

The former Sime Darby Plantations, 2022's 112nd winner who also seeded the 530th & 554th consecutive link in the current unbreakable chain of gain, is sold down to the last 24 shares !

Beyond 5 Years : 9 Years of Hope Denied continue to be Ameliorated with 9 Rounds from WTK ! {15th Oct '25}

 

WTK brings the running miracle to within 5 days of another Century mark, an incredible odyssey of redemption & synchronicity that DEFIES the statistics of the co-creator's merely modest intelligence, market downturn frequencies & the unholy longevity of the 2014-2025 local bear market!🦄🌄🎲🎰🍾

Beyond 5 Years : A Near Replica of the L&G and Sinmah duet on 9th October ! {14th Oct '25}

 

Land & General is sold down to 63,360 shares, most of it at a 7-year high of 18.5c while Sinmah Capital is gratefully sold down to just 1 unit, lifting its '20-'25 contribution above $700, even excluding the 2013 instance of earning under its previous name: Farm's Best !

Beyond 5 Years : EUPE Attains a Hat3rick ! {13th Oct '25}

 

My much anticipated October meltdown may be close at hand!

 

Proof that I've prepared for this for months? My cash levels are nearing $200,000, up 45% since the time of the early April market meltdown & cash net of debt is almost $180,000, up 75% in the same timeframe as my ¥ cash holdings have remained undiminished at their record high for 23 days straight, after jumping 35-fold since early July!

This even as my dividend income is likely to exceed $20,000 for the 3rd year running, after previously only coming within a  block of that figure in 2018 [$18,453.37] before falling 32% the following year, & compared with a cumulative figure of just under $10,000 from 2002 till 2008 inclusive, the latter bookend year being the infamous previous massive financial meltdown episode!

Beyond 5 Years : L & G Keeps my Signature Achievement Alive with a 2nd Win in as many Days ! {10th Oct '25}

 

Also, in the last few days, Yaskawa Electric in Japan has seen my ill-timed purchase for the Feb '25 dividend narrow its paper loss from 

¥130,000 to  ¥20,600  today after an improved forecast issued on 10.3.25 while my margin debt has narrowed by 48% since Sep 26th when I first transferred funds from my sales of #92 WTK to offset the niggling debt that has been a millstone around the neck of my quest for indisputable financial freedom for at least a year! It's highly comforting that just 2 of my remaining profitable equities, the abovementioned & the scorer today, 10.10.25, together with my remaining cash balance after paying for the host of upcoming dividend payers purchased, equate to over 100% of my entire outstanding debt, not even counting the small remaining stakes in #95 EUPE, #38 Nestlé and a handful of others that I'm counting on to take the record to 1,300 consecutive days & beyond! 

Beyond 5 Years : Land & General Duets with Sinmah Capital for a MIRACULOUS Escape ! {9th Oct '25}

 

#94 / '25 Land & General continues to stun observers with its nearly 60% advance in 3 weeks & is pared down to 66,860 shares at > 6-year highs to come within 9 market days of another record Century on top of the unbelievable Millennium attained 13/8/24! Later this morning, Sinmah Capital executes an even more impressive tripling in the same timeframe, allowing a miraculous ESCAPE as new #97 from a heavily -ve position to eke out a $18 gain after costs!!!🚂🦄🍾

Beyond 5 Years : WTK Steps in an 8th time to extend the Run on 8th October ! {8th Oct '25}

 

Beyond 5 Years : Hengyuan rights options, repeat winner SHL & EUPE push the streak past 1,287,1288 & 1,289 Successive Days! {3rd-7th Oct '25}

 

Beyond 5 Years : 9 Years of Frustration end with 7 Rounds from WTK ! {2nd Oct '25}

 

Beyond 5 Years : A FIRST timer that delivers the Cake & feeds it to me Finally ! {1st Oct '25}

 

After enjoying a buffet lunch & receiving door gifts from a maiden attendance at its '25 shareholder meeting & pocketing my 1st dividend from its coffers, EUPE rewards my faith as #95 / '25 & the record steps into its never-before-attained 63rd month!🏃‍♂️🦄✊

The Century countdown comes to within 5 winners of attaining 13 years of >100 scalps in a row dating back to 2013 as the marathon steps into the last quarter of 2025 !!!