Sitting before a cluster of computer screens in an apartment with the drapes shut, it took Naoki Murakami seconds to make $3,500 betting $1 million that Tokyo Electric Power Co. shares would fall a fraction of a percent.
The 34-year-old day trader first sold 50,000 shares at ¥558, then three more lots at ¥1 intervals as the stock dropped. He got out $2,500 richer, repeated the trade, and seconds later had $1,000 more. Within minutes of the market opening, the former water-purifier salesman had made more than the average Japanese earns in a month.
Stringing together 20 or 30 similar trades each day, Murakami said he's almost doubled his money to $750,000 this year. He calls himself the smallest player in a group of seven day traders who cumulatively buy and sell almost $100 million in stocks each day, using leverage to increase the size of their bets.