In the United States, retail investors poured into Reddit’s WallStreetBets to get hot stock tips. In Japan, they have opened a bar where investors can thrash out stock punts.
The brainchild of Satoshi Uehara, the pseudonym used by a popular investing influencer on Twitter, Stock Pickers was set up in early March after a crowdfunding campaign which took in more than ¥5.5 million — nearly six times its goal.
The bar has been almost full nearly every day since it opened, said Riki Yamauchi, a finance professional and the bar’s public relations manager, even though Stock Pickers was launched when Japan was still in a coronavirus state of emergency. Bars remained open during the state of emergency but were instructed to close early.