RetireJapan

Hi everyone,

Thought of investing in US market (S&P500/Nasdaq) indexes now, while the prices have plunged.
Only, my account with Monex is in yen, and buying US assets now does not look attractive, with this around 130 USDJPY rate.
Read some articles here, and saw some recommendations to invest in local assets now.
I would not invest in separate companies in Japan because I do not know them, and how to read their financial reports. Thought of investing in local indexes, such as Nikkei and Topix, but do not like both their technical charts and the overall situation with this huge Japan debt.

Thus the question: do Japanese brokers (Monex if possible) offer any US index funds or ETFs which would be denominated in JPY, or currency-hedged? So my assets would follow US indexes, but without over-paying for nowadays USDJPY rate.

Thanks!!

Currency hedging just makes, in this case, your US investment behave more like a Japanese one, and it comes with extra costs for the privilege. If that's what you want, it's simpler just to go heavier on Japanese stocks. But personally I wouldn't do that. If you're investing for the long term, just ignore the noise and stay the course with the strategy you already subscribed to (assuming it's a sensible one).

Earning money in a weakened currency is just back luck. Suck it up or if you want to do something effective about it, earn money in another currency.

HeavyMetal wrote: ↑Sun May 15, 2022 5:55 am Thus the question: do Japanese brokers (Monex if possible) offer any US index funds or ETFs which would be denominated in JPY, or currency-hedged?

This would not make any difference. The price of the fund is based on the price of the underlying assets converted into the currency you buy it in.

So the price of a USD fund that you bought by converting yen into dollars would be the same as the price of a fund you bought in yen with the same assets inside it.

Thanks for replies!!!

it's simpler just to go heavier on Japanese stocks

That would be great but I have no idea where to get Japanese stocks statements, and can't read them anyway (kanji). And without that I wouldn't invest... Maybe some website publishes them, in English?
And also, I do not see much future for Japan economy, to invest long term...

just ignore the noise and stay the course with the strategy you already subscribed to

Yeah! problem is that my strategies based on US assets cause of statements...
Bad luck, yes. 20% plunge... Wow.

This would not make any difference

Hmm when I searched for some US index ETFs traded in Euro, at the times when Euro was stronger than USD than now, the charts (TradingView) clearly showed me that currency hedged ETFs grow more than non-hedged ones (for same index of course).
I am not sure how it works, but charts told me it works
Thought something similar is possible to find in JPY. I could compare them on TV, if I had tickers, but I have no idea how to find those currency-hedged tickers here, if they exist at all.

HeavyMetal wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 7:57 pm

This would not make any difference

Hmm when I searched for some US index ETFs traded in Euro, at the times when Euro was stronger than USD than now, the charts (TradingView) clearly showed me that currency hedged ETFs grow more than non-hedged ones (for same index of course).
I am not sure how it works, but charts told me it works
Thought something similar is possible to find in JPY. I could compare them on TV, if I had tickers, but I have no idea how to find those currency-hedged tickers here, if they exist at all.

The results will be different depending on what happens in the future, but we don't know what will happen. The starting value is the same.

People who bought hedged JPY denominated US funds last year will have been slaughtered this year, as the assets in them went down but they didn't benefit from the currency movement. Plus hedged funds have slightly higher fees.

HeavyMetal wrote: ↑Sun May 15, 2022 5:55 am Hi everyone,

Thought of investing in US market (S&P500/Nasdaq) indexes now, while the prices have plunged.
Only, my account with Monex is in yen, and buying US assets now does not look attractive, with this around 130 USDJPY rate.
Read some articles here, and saw some recommendations to invest in local assets now.
I would not invest in separate companies in Japan because I do not know them, and how to read their financial reports. Thought of investing in local indexes, such as Nikkei and Topix, but do not like both their technical charts and the overall situation with this huge Japan debt.

Thus the question: do Japanese brokers (Monex if possible) offer any US index funds or ETFs which would be denominated in JPY, or currency-hedged? So my assets would follow US indexes, but without over-paying for nowadays USDJPY rate.

Thanks!!

If you buy US assets while the Yen is at 127.5 to the Dollar, you are likely to see your dollars devalue in Yen terms as the Yen strengthens...

Whilst Japanese Companies that make significant revenue overseas are seeing their profits increase in Yen Terms due to the Yen weakness.

You cannot control either market prices or exchange rates. You can only wait them out.

If you buy Hedged assets, the price is the same at the time of purchase at the current exchange rate, but future forex moves would be hedged to some extent.


This was posted in another thread
https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2022/05 ... ket-crash/

It says:

Stock price = company earnings x BRM*

*(Bullshit Random Multiplier)
(Or should that be Bull Market Random Multiplier as it goes up with Bull Market Momentum)

The BRM, more formally known as the Price-to-Earnings ratio or P/E, is supposed to be based on a mathematical estimate of the present value of all future dividends you will receive if you hold a stock for the entire life of the company.
...
As an investor, however, you don’t care about the BRM. In fact, you don’t even really care about the share prices of your investments, because the price of an individual share only matters twice in your lifetime:

The moment you buy it,
And the moment you sell it.

Everything else is just silly noise.


Really?? I do care about the BRM at the moment I buy it...

The BRM is actually derived from the Stock price and company earnings which are both given, so it should read

Stock price / company earnings = BRM*

However, if you are investing in different currencies, you need to add

Stock price = company earnings x BRM* x REM**

*(Bullshit Random Multiplier)
**(Random Exchange-Rate Multiplier - This is 1 for same currency...)

To maximize your return, you want to buy when both of these Multipliers are Low, and sell when they are both high...


If you buy US assets in Euros from JPY, then

Stock price = company earnings x BRM* x REM** x REM**

*(Bullshit Random Multiplier)
**(Random Exchange-Rate Multiplier - This is 1 for same currency...)

But, unless you already own the EUR or USD, then JPY to EUR to USD would be the same as JPY to USD...
(If it wasn't, there would be an arbitrage opportunity in the Forex Market, and it would disappear quickly as traders took advantage of it to take profits...)

If you DCA in Yen into Low Cost Japanese Index Funds; Nikkei 225 and/or Topix in the short term, you should start to see some gains due to the weak Yen, and then when the Yen strengthens and you get more Dollars for your Yen you can Switch to more reasonably priced Overseas Assets at lower BRM* and REM**.

You DO NOT have to Buy and Hold forever... You can Switch if it makes sense to do so, especially within Tax Advantaged Instruments such as iDECO, 401k, those despised Offshore Investment Bonds, etc., when you would not be subject to any taxes when switching...

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 12:18 am

HeavyMetal wrote: ↑Sun May 22, 2022 7:57 pm

This would not make any difference

Hmm when I searched for some US index ETFs traded in Euro, at the times when Euro was stronger than USD than now, the charts (TradingView) clearly showed me that currency hedged ETFs grow more than non-hedged ones (for same index of course).
I am not sure how it works, but charts told me it works
Thought something similar is possible to find in JPY. I could compare them on TV, if I had tickers, but I have no idea how to find those currency-hedged tickers here, if they exist at all.

The results will be different depending on what happens in the future, but we don't know what will happen. The starting value is the same.

People who bought hedged JPY denominated US funds last year will have been slaughtered this year, as the assets in them went down but they didn't benefit from the currency movement. Plus hedged funds have slightly higher fees.

Personally I would only ever consider hedging with bonds. And as some have suggested before, a 50/50 split between a hedged bond find and non-hedged bond fund would be a decent compromise.

Haystack wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 3:50 am Personally I would only ever consider hedging with bonds. And as some have suggested before, a 50/50 split between a hedged bond find and non-hedged bond fund would be a decent compromise.

A Forex Hedge is not the same as a Portfolio Hedge

And there is no such thing as a perfect hedge. Ask Daniel Shin and Do Kwon

And if you hedge to avoid the losses, you also avoid the gains...

HeavyMetal wrote: ↑Sun May 15, 2022 5:55 am Thus the question: do Japanese brokers (Monex if possible) offer any US index funds or ETFs which would be denominated in JPY, or currency-hedged?

To give a simple answer to the OP's original question, yes, Monex offers many currency-hedged funds. Just go to their fund search page (https://fund.monex.co.jp/search), click the box for "ヘッジあり" under 為替ヘッジ, and then you get 162 choices. You can further refine your search with the other parameters.

As other posters have stated above though, if your horizon is long term, better just to keep plugging away and not worry to much about what could be temporary currency moves.

Tkydon wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 4:15 am

Haystack wrote: ↑Mon May 23, 2022 3:50 am Personally I would only ever consider hedging with bonds. And as some have suggested before, a 50/50 split between a hedged bond find and non-hedged bond fund would be a decent compromise.

A Forex Hedge is not the same as a Portfolio Hedge

And there is no such thing as a perfect hedge. Ask Daniel Shin and Do Kwon

And if you hedge to avoid the losses, you also avoid the gains...

My comment was in reference to only considering a hedged bond fund, not a hedged equity fund. Of course there is no perfect hedge. But algorithmic stable coins are a bad example, as they are basically destined to fail.

The bonds would act as a diversify and a ballast in a portfolio. Yield is not their primary function. That is why splitting a bond allocation between a hedged and non-hedged fund would be a way to split the risk of currency movement.