Daiwa Securities Purchased just 0.2 yen above the Aug 5th '24 Black Monday low

                                                        

                                                                                                     

   The intra-day low of ¥845.1 will likely be renewed on Monday with the Dow industrials dropping more than 2,200 points Friday, despite my maiden entry being -22% on its 2025 high & -37% down from its 52-week peak, on a prospective 5.1% yield. 

 Discounting from its ¥103.9 peak EPS in 2006 suggests a fair value of  ¥980.5 while a similar comparison with its 2021 EPS produces a fair value of just over ¥840.5. Using the 2000 peak EPS, which is 90% of the latest EPS of ¥84.9 and extrapolating from its Aug 2000 low & its Mar 2001 lows gives us a fair value range of  ¥777.5 to ¥976.5. Six months after it announced a big loss of  (¥98) per share, the stock bottomed at ¥411 and it double-bottomed at around ¥430 five months later in Apr '03, a month before disclosing a much improved (¥4.7) per share for FY '03. The stock rebounded swiftly to a high of ¥995 in Oct '03 and after a -36% drop within 2 months, rebounded back to double-bottomed at around ¥933 exactly a year after the secondary bottom of 2003. After completing a consolidation 'triple bottom' of around ¥640 in Dec '03, Oct '04 & Apr '05, the price discounted the surges in EPS from ¥31.7 to ¥37.5 & beyond ¥100 in 2006 before dropping to ¥67.9 in 2007 & halving to ¥33.7 in '08 before turning red again [ (¥63.2) ] in 2009. Despite '06's peak EPS falling 35% the next year, the stock managed to best its May '06 peak of ¥1,672 by 1 tick in end Feb '07! I aim to sell on such a rebound within the year, or at least a resurgence similar to the 47% rally from its Jan '08 low of  ¥809 to ¥1,187 in June that year. Comparable nadir EPS are (¥62.5) in 1997, (¥43.2) in 1998, (¥32.4) in 1992 &  (¥23.5) in 1995.

Incredible Streak : The 'other' local Jeweler 💍 Sparkles & Takes Charge 💎 of the Streak to attain 1,162 days in a row ! {4th Apr '25}

    Down to my last bits on whatever remains of the handful of profitable stocks, Tomei Consolidated is selected to perpetuate the cherished marathon through the global equities markets' worst day since March 2020 in the year the legend began & re-wrote the old record in July 2022, after two rounds as #54 in 2024. This is the 3rd jeweler to score & contribute to the run after Poh Kong & Tsutsumi 🎌.

   Today, I also put bets down that the current selloff is close to bottoming by buying long-stalked  Daiwa Securities, hoping that it will become my 4th 🎌 securities stock to earn a trading gain, after Maruhachi , Okasan and of course, Nomura !  1,203 in the combined score means it's sandwiched between 26th & 27th Dec '24 as the 4th highest score to date!

 

 

Incredible Streak : Jasa Kita Delivers 6X while Quality Concrete surprisingly exits at a HIGH to breach 1,200 Points ! {3rd Apr '25}

    Markets crashing frighteningly are met with a strange calm within me & two jewelry stocks that are still sitting on paper gains were the front-runners to prolong the record run. However, I got greedy & waited to see if Poh Kong & Tomei  could go beyond $1.09 & $1.84 respectively as they seemed to track the buoyant price of Gold early on. However, they couldn't sustain gains as markets continued to tank & began to drag down the yellow metal itself eventually.        

    Thus, #6 [ & the 77th winner in '24] Jasa Kita had to step in a sixth time with a reluctant partial disposal at 28c less than twenty minutes from the close. However, unbeknownst to me, the random sell order for my last remaining hundred shares in Quality Concrete had been done before noon [ sold at $1.22 after re-entry at 91c last year] due to my day-long outing with relatives and so I finally attain forty winners in '25 on the back of a +34% gross gain, bringing the combined score to 1,201 points, tying with X'mas Eve '24 as 5th best score up to this point in my investing odyssey !

Incredible Streak : A local Jeweler 💎 Sparkles 💍 With a Hattrick ! {2nd Apr '25}

  My prediction of a 78% probable drop in the local index due to the net 300+ point drop in the oldest US equity index over the two day nuisance local holiday was surprisingly proven wrong as the local index rallied +0.85% at the close, though losers handily crushed gainers with a 637-288 margin as recent winners KL Kepong and Nestlé M'sia, both dropped, the former by 1.4% and the latter by 2.2% while other less recent contributors to the enduring record, CIMB , Tenaga Nasional , Petronas Dagangan and CelcomDigi featured in the Top 20 Gainers' list.

  The abovementioned forecast caused me to dispose of just under half my remaining stake in Poh Kong💍, which, as the 13th scalp of '25, corralled the 1,119th & 1,155th links in the unbroken chain of gain dating back to 2020, at the $1.04 open, which proved to be the day's low. Another lot was sold at $1.06 a bit later to ameliorate the bad timing but the undervalued gold-related stock closed up nearly 4% at $1.07 on the tailwind of the yellow metal's stellar over-long-weekend jumped to fresh all-time highs. This intermittent contributor thus secures 116 decades in the ongoing miracle!

    

    The intention set in the morning for a synchronistic day ahead was somewhat fulfilled by the Japanese market going nowhere after several days of weakness after the widespread 28th Mar ex-dividend date as seller dominated action in Tokyo, sending many stocks to 52-week lows & others, like barely-missed-buying at ¥ 2,723 on 13th Mar bellweather stock Toyota tumbled into technical support zones from after last years Black Monday meltdown in August. After lunch, I also fortuitously picked up some money from the floor of a kopitiam that shaved 6% of my frugal food bill for the day! Every cent helps in this crumbly economic environment! Also, for many years now, picking up carelessly-abandoned money has portended windfalls in the stockmarkets !!!

 

   Hence, the combined score leapfrogs over 19th Dec's 1,197 points to become the 7th highest score thus far at 1,199, level with 20th Dec' 24 !!!

 

With the local market closed 2 days for the religious holiday, the marathon takes a [reluctant] break while open markets mostly tumble!

 

Incredible Streak : 🎌TWO🎌 in a Row with #28 Econach エコナックa Day after #19 Tobishima 飛島 ! { 28th Mar '25 }

    The old Nippon Lace , which almost went bust in the '90s and then in the '00s gets partially sold again on the ex-dividend day, its first payout since 1969 ! I had harbored a desire to earn from this stock ever since learning about it obliquely via the book ' Unequal Equities' which I purchased on eBay in 2017, partly due to a mysterious attraction to its name. 

    When I finally pulled the trigger last July, it was almost entirely speculative as the company hadn't paid a dividend in ages & looked very unlikely to do so in the foreseeable future! Tricked by what seemed to be an upside breakout, I bought in less than 3 ticks from its peak that month & within a month, it tumbled to ¥90 with the broader market suffering its worst sell-off since 1987 in August 2024! Then, a chance to escape was missed because of the evanescence of its intraday pop to ¥151 on 8th Nov. However, the good results released that previous day was a sign of better things to come & so an excellent quarterly report at the end of Feb '25 spurred a more robust jump to ¥183, the highest allowable price on the the 26th of that month, furnishing the perfect excuse to pare my holdings from 1,200 to 800.

   And so, a most improbable win manifests from the vortex at least a couple of years into the gestation period, making it two consecutive🎌 wins & 1,198 points in the combined score!!!

Incredible Streak : The Odyssey goes ON with🎌#19 Tobishima 飛島 Exiting on a 2nd Disposal ! { 27th Mar '25 }

  It was a tough choice between two 🎌 equities both acquired in 2018 but underperformed thereafter, with Nippon Felt 日本フエルト dropping 33.8% by its pandemic-printed low, while Tobishima 飛島 more than halved from the original ill-time entry very nearly at the 2018 peak! Fortunately, two cost-averaging purchases, & six dividends later, the price was lowered to a tad below ¥1,600 and thanks to generous dividends, the total income surpasses ¥50,000 after today's sale!

  The year's take from the Japanese isles thus pops past  ¥203,000, already exceeding all the full annual winning tallies since my debut eight years ago, save for 2021 & the last two years, the fastest pace to date both in terms of yen amounts & contributors, the combined score now just eleven points distant from the all-time high as at end-'24!  

   I am certainly heartened that yesterday's maiden entry into Eisai エーザイ closed on the day before ex-dividend tomorrow with a paper 'saving' of  ¥ 4,900, more than 1 commission while less recent purchase Sakai Heavy 酒井重工業, a tractor maker, actually covered both commissions on paper by the close, at  ¥ 9,100. Of course, both paper gains are expected to disappear when they go ex-dividend tomorrow morning! Celebrated with lunch at a ' ryotei'  料亭!

 

Incredible Streak : IJM reprises its role as #37 from the 20th...{26th Mar '25}

   With Japanese stocks not really rising as the widespread ex-dividend date looms two days away , #37 IJM has to step in to support the winning streak running not far from empty locally, with only six 🎌 paper gainers left [ likely far less once the 28th arrives ]. & about four locally. Nonetheless, a win is a win is a WIN no matter how small and so the miracle sails on...improbably, incredibly & even miraculously !

  Today also witnessed a strange intra-day ramp in Kawase Computer カワセコンピ: the stock suddenly jumped a minute before 2pm Tokyo time & over 415,000 shares were traded before it peaked 5 minutes later at ¥294 before gapping down back to ¥236 & closing at a loss of 2% thus dashing hopes for its role as a streak extender [average price transacted was ¥257.626 ! ]. 

  

   I also finally committed to long-stalked drugmaker Eisai エーザイ at an unchanged  ¥ 4,321 as it narrowly overtakes Yaskawa Electric 安川電機 as the most expensive 🎌stock acquired thus far! 

  

  The former's price is resting on a secondary uptrend line joining the lows in 2003, 2009, 2010 & 2011 and based on P/B &  dividend yields going back to 1976, the fair value suggested is anywhere between ¥ 5,000 and  ¥ 10,000. However, based on EPS, the undervalued range is likely between ¥ 3,000 and  ¥ 4,000. 

    The charts below give a snapshot of financials surrounding the '82 low and the '88 peak, with an adjustment factor of  0.76518 after bonus issues:

Dividend quantum has multiplied almost 21-fold since then, while EPS has increased 3.64 x!

Will the Japanese equity market bottom in July, 60 years after the major bottom in 1965?

 

      At the time, Yamaichi Securities, the dominant broker in Japan was teetering on bankruptcy [it would finally go bust 32 years later as a consequence of the Bubble Economy bursting] as customers frantically withdrew billions of yen from investment trusts earning 6% from the flailing underwriter for 80% of the phalanx of new companies lining up to be floated on the 2nd Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. This was inadvertently revealed by a rogue paper in May 1965 in defiance of the establishment's attempt to suppress the news. 

The Bank of Japan agreed, under duress from the Finance Minister Tanaka to supply 'unlimited' support after already promising  over ¥18 billion to the sinking broker. The market bottomed 2 months thereafter. 

Incredible Streak : 🎌Lonseal ロンシール工業 Spurs the Marathon to 1,155 Days & it's the #15/86 🎌 in '25/since '17! { 25th Mar '25 }

   Buying some insurance against drops bigger than dividend quantums anticipated on the 28th when most 🎌 stocks go ex-entitlement. Lonseal ロンシール is paying out a bigger than average ¥70 per share [4.4% yield] & so poses a high risk of dropping way more than the dividend quantum while I'm eyeing many other stocks in that market !

  The marathon baton-receiver thus becomes the fifteenth 🎌 scorer this year & brings the tally to 86 since July 2017 with 3 months left to the 8th Anniversary & the target average tally per year upgraded to 11 from ten!  In contrast, it took until Aug 19th to attain the same 15 winners last year, almost five months away, making the current pace a scorching one, even in comparison to the record 23 that eventuated in '23 !!!