Business / Financial Markets Dec 22, 2020
WealthNavi gives Tokyo Stock Exchange one of its biggest IPOs of year
The wealth management platform has debuted at a time when amateur investment in Japan is heating up.
Komaki Ito
For Komaki Ito's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
Business / Corporate Dec 11, 2020
Rags to riches: CEO of ¥100 billion startup comes up from the streets
Taihei Kobayashi's story is among the most remarkable to emerge from a small-cap stock boom that’s minting fortunes.
Business / Financial Markets | FOCUS Aug 22, 2018
Bank of Japan's threat to global bonds fizzles as Japanese insurers stay put
For all the frenzy over the Bank of Japan's first policy tweak in almost two years, little seems to have changed for the nation's insurers. That's because the rise in long-end government bond yields seen after the central bank's July 31 decision has proved to ...
Business / Corporate Jun 11, 2018
Banking veteran slams Japanese banks' fixation on archaic trading methods
Regional banks need to stop their fixation with the old-fashioned buy-and-hold strategy and be more nimble to make the most of their investments, a three-decade industry veteran says. The current low interest-rate environment calls for lenders to adopt a trading mentality and look to lock-in ...
Business Jan 15, 2018
Japan's loyalty cards to provide early sneak peek at company profits
When shopping in Japan, a phrase you'll hear all the time is "Do you have a point card?" And the most common is the T-card, which can be used at hundreds of thousands of shops nationwide, from car accessory dealers to convenience stores. Half of ...
Business Feb 6, 2017
Venture brings freshest fish to cities, more money for fishermen
Ryohei Nomoto wants to put fresher sashimi on your plate, and more money in the wallets of Japan's struggling fishermen. His venture air-freights freshly caught fish from across Japan, processes them on the grounds of Tokyo's Haneda airport, and distributes the produce to the city's ...
Business / Corporate Dec 20, 2016
Tokyo startup looks to tap satellite images of nighttime neon to forecast GDP
Nowcast Inc., a Japanese financial research and technology startup, has developed a product that estimates economic growth in real time by using satellite images of nighttime lights. Based on algorithms that examine changes in the intensity of illumination, as well as a range of published ...
Business / Corporate Sep 13, 2016
Fintech venture takes on hedge funds with earnings estimates derived from big data
A Japanese startup is entering the equity research business in a bid to challenge the dominance of securities firms by using computers to crunch vast troves of information and predict companies' earnings. Nowcast Inc., a financial-technology venture formed last year out of the University of ...
Business Aug 22, 2016
Japanese AI hedge fund paves way for evolution of trading
Yoshinori Nomura felt like weeping. It was the morning of June 24, Brexit day, and markets were moving against him. Well, not against him, exactly. It was the hedge fund manager's self-learning computer program that had placed the bet, selling Japanese stock-index futures before a ...
Business / Financial Markets Aug 19, 2016
As Japanese bond investors hunt yields, hurricanes may be worth the risk
Japan's bond investors are so desperate for yield that more and more of them are putting money in notes from insurers whose value can be wiped out by unexpectedly strong hurricanes or earthquakes. Catastrophe bonds in the U.S. yield 3.3 percent on average, a Swiss ...