Debating about lump sum jpn retirement allocations.

[sutebayashi]

If you don’t like the idea of going all in at once, make a schedule to buy periodically over x number of weeks/months, and do so.

Or you could wait…. But yeah if the market does rebound soon (I am not of that mind…) you will miss out.

At least if you distribute across time, you might feel more comfortable about that.

Actually I am doing just this over the last three months of the year with my kids NISA accounts.

I think we are in a bear market now, so if you are going to delay your investment, I would totally not blame you. Usually the markets are in an uptrend so then it makes total sense to go straight in.

In the long run, it probably won’t too make difference, so don’t try to get too clever, and take what luck you happen to get. The important thing is to get invested before too long. The market always looks the worst at the bottom.

As for the yen… currency markets tend to trend. The US dollar is strong now, but versus the yen may indeed be even stronger several months from now. (There is a thread where people were polling for USD/JPY this year, and I think the rate is higher now than anyone had predicted back in January.)

[RetireJapan]

I think using the 2022 NISA account is worth considering, even if you're not ready to invest more at this time.

But we don't know what is going to happen. Markets could go up, down, sideways. Yen could strengthen, weaken, stabilize. It could go to 160 to the dollar. Or back to 110. Or stay at 147 for years.

All we can control is our own behaviour. Starting a regular investing habit into something sensible is something you are unlikely to regret in a decade or two.

[shadows]

If you don’t like the idea of going all in at once, make a schedule to buy periodically over x number of weeks/months, and do so.

Or you could wait…. But yeah if the market does rebound soon (I am not of that mind…) you will miss out.

At least if you distribute across time, you might feel more comfortable about that.

Actually I am doing just this over the last three months of the year with my kids NISA accounts.

I think we are in a bear market now, so if you are going to delay your investment, I would totally not blame you. Usually the markets are in an uptrend so then it makes total sense to go straight in.

In the long run, it probably won’t too make difference, so don’t try to get too clever, and take what luck you happen to get. The important thing is to get invested before too long. The market always looks the worst at the bottom.

As for the yen… currency markets tend to trend. The US dollar is strong now, but versus the yen may indeed be even stronger several months from now. (There is a thread where people were polling for USD/JPY this year, and I think the rate is higher now than anyone had predicted back in January.)

All solid points thank you. As Ben said, we can only control our own behavior. Plus as sutebayashi mentioned periodic sums might be the way to go at 147 now vs lump sums... and not get too clever.
Trying not to be clever aside from the NISA and emaxis heavy overseas funds how about dropping part of a lump sum in a domestic fund like Tawara no road nikkei 225? I mean retire planning in Japan..... that's all in yen, correct?

[sutebayashi]

I have no Japanese equities personally. I am skeptical that Japanese equities will tend to rise over the long term, as is typical in other markets, but this is my individual bias. Most advice I recall reading (in Japan) seems to suggest having about 10% Japanese equities is good? Since my home is in Japan and my income is from Japan, I feel I have enough exposure to Japan, as it is. Still, I expect Japanese equities would be better than plain old yen savings.

[mighty58]

Your hesitation on the currency issue is understandable, as from an FX perspective this certainly is the worst time in a decade to be buying foreign assets in yen.

But trying to predict the future is fickle endeavour. Will today remain the worst time to buy? One poster above mentioned that "currency markets tend to trend", seemingly implying that the yen MUST go back down. Is that really a given though? Says who? Sure, it could happen. Or it might not. And if it does go down, how long it will take? One year? 2? 5? 10? And how far down are we going exactly? 135? 125? 115? How long are you willing to wait for all this to play out, all the while still sitting on that cash pile that you started this thread looking to deploy?

It was also suggested above that a bear market may not be the best time for investing... really? Why is that? If you have a long-term investment horizon, buying during bear markets is probably the absolute best thing you can do.

Allowing short-term market fluctuations to affect your decisions is usually a bad move. Not always, as you might guess correctly the course of things over the next few months. But if you acknowledge that you can't accurately predict the future, going all-in is the conclusion that you logically come to. The longer your investment time horizon, the more time things will have to compound your returns (even if you have to live with a J-curve of returns for the first few years).