So I thought I was very clear about the difference between investing and trading … turned out I was wrong.

I saw from a technical standpoint that both US and JP market might have a big run up, so I added positions to both.

But after a huge drop yesterday I got scared and cut some positions – which is OK as a trade, but the sizing was perhaps a bit too big.

My new plan for positioning

So here is the new plan.

I’ll have 15% in US equities and 15% in JP equities as the base case.

the 15% JP equities will be stored in NISA. once it gets up to 15%, I’ll hold it there and stop the DCA purchasing.

After that I’ll put the rest of the NISA in rakuten nasdaq 100 until US equities reaches 15% as well.

The rest I’ll just hold in the normal account in gold.

Come to think, eventually I might need to up the percentage since I’d want to get a 10% return on the entire portfolio, and having too little in equities and too much in bonds probably will drag things down. I’m not quite ready for that though so let’s see when to do that.

The age of inflation and expansion of wealth gap

EDIT 3 days later – I think I’ll have at least 20% for the most part, with 15% as the maximum absolute base case. Especially I think I’ll do more yen shorts and increase my JP equities to at least 20-25%, maybe 30%+ in the aggressive scenario.

The thing is, the market can drop 50% at some point and I can take a big hit. But in the medium-long term, inflation is going to persist. War and de-globalization is going to continue. Money’s value is going to keep dropping and that means even bonds and low-yield instruments aren’t going to cut it.

So more stocks, more leverage, more gold – the risk is there but the rewards will be handsome.

I’ll take it one step at a time though – going in too fast has made me scared as shown in this post. Logically I understand the risks need to be taken but as a human being I have weakness that logic cannot overcome, just like anybody else.

By writing posts like this though I am trying to overcome my weakness more and let my logical side take the driver’s seat.

Timing the market

It’s not necessarily the best idea to try to time the market but I’m going to try a little bit, using technical analysis and reading the economy etc.

I’ll push 15% US equities up to 20% – probably buying mostly Nasdaq-100 (QQQM) and try to ride any waves up, and get out during consolidation and downtrend periods.

Same with JP equities. from 15 up to 20% buying mostly Nikkei-225 (1321). (after the edit, up to 25%. Also more 2644)

I’ll just go ahead and do that with the main account and not count it as “trading”.

Meanwhile trading would be with individual stocks that looks good with technical analysis.

Moving things around

Besides N225, I want to put around 20-30% into 2644 – Global X semiconductor.

I think this is the industry that the US really needs Japan to prosper and it should run better than the rest of the market.

However it is quite volatile as there was 2% drop in N225 and 5% drop in 2644, so it shouldn’t be too heavy-weighted probably just for sanity’s sake.

I’ll put the 2644 inside IBKR for now and move it into NISA in 2025 while reducing the nasdaq-100 holdings and eventually the gold holdings in the normal account.