I know this is replying to a post that is several months old, but there is so much misleading information in bushidobryan's post above that I feel compelled to respond, as I’m sure there will be others coming across it for the first time.
I would not invest into an Index fund. We called them loss leaders when I was a Fidelity.
They are loss leaders
for Fidelity, who’s entire business model is the taking of fees. With Fidelity now offering zero-fee index funds, and because there’s always some cost associated with running a fund, Fidelity is eating that cost (or recouping it in others ways such as stock lending). For us investors though, zero fees is great.
I would target screens 'thoughtful indexes'
Any actively managed fund (whether by human or by algorithm) will incur larger fees, and research indicates that actively managed funds underperform the index over the long term. Even with a great strategy/fund manager, it is very difficult to outperform the market net of those extra fees. One or two years of outperformance? Of course. But consistently over, say, 10 years? No.
I would also, put some money into the private markets over time.
Hahaha, really? And perhaps you’d like to explain for us how a non-HNWI retail investor would go about accessing the private markets? It's true that the highest performing private equity firms like Blackstone have outperformed the S&P500 on a consistent basis. Given that though, there is intense competition amongst institutional and accredited investors just to get access to Blackstone and other top-quartile PE funds. The rest of the private equity and venture capital world, however, returns on average
the same as the SP500 (7-8% annualized) in the long term. So again, please explain to me how I can access the likes of KKR or Bain Capital as a small retail investor in Japan.
Stick to indexing folks.