Read more

Read the full article here:

Listen, Japan is amazing. It’s the land of the rising sun, unparalleled service, and convenience stores that will ruin your life back home. But contrary to your gaijin beliefs, not every city is a neon-soaked cyberpunk dreamland. Some cities are just concrete, car centric hellscapes peppered with pachinko parlors and chain restaurants…

So, channel your i…

Read more

Every morning, my aunt in Kumamoto sends me a Facebook Reel. Sometimes it’s cute animals, but more and more, it’s things like a foreigner doing something rude on a train, a shop sign in a language she can’t read, a tourist climbing something she definitely shouldn’t. You get the theme.

No shade to my cute aunt, but she’s 71, and never had a problem with …

Read more

Disclaimer: This content is for informational purposes only, not investment advice. I may own equities mentioned in this article. Investing involves risk, so always do your own research before buying or selling any securities. I own the Yomiuri 333 index via SBI's tracking fund, taking advantage of its 0.132% fee.

If you hold a Japanese index fund, there…

Read more

Kyushu is as “real Japan” as it gets! The nature here is something else. The food, I’d put it above any…

Read more

A note on the format: I recorded myself and then transcribed it and cleaned up the formatting. So it reads a lot more like I actually talk than my usual written pieces do. However, all figures and facts are based on Hitachi’s disclosed documents and have been rigorously verified as always. Tell me in the comments whether you like this format better than the normal one!

After last week's Okinawa Cellular Telephone analysis, I've really taken a liking to Katsenelson’s Absolute P/E. To fully test it out, I needed a worthy Japanese company.

Hitachi is the obvious choice!

It is the best turnaround this country has produced in my lifetime, and it happens to sell the electrical infrastructure of the entire AI buildout.

They just reported their Q1 this Tuesday, raised guidance and the stock popped 3.8%.

So now, how do I view this company after a brilliant report and ultra positive management?

Executive Summary

KonichiValue Score for Hitachi Ltd. (6501): Sell | Last: 5,146 JPY | Mkt Cap: 23.1 Trillion JPY

• Trailing P/E: 29.1x

• Forward P/E: 25.6x

• Absolute Fair Value P/E: 16.5x

• Base-case Fair Value: 3,323 JPY

• Weighted Fair Value: 3,444 JPY

• Normalized EPS: 201 JPY (management’s own number)

• Dividend Yield: 1.07%

• Net debt to equity: 15.4%

Why I am writing this:

This is an amazing company with incredible moats.

However, the stock is trading 8% above my bull case, not my base case, my bull case! And my bull case already assumes a decade long global infrastructure boom.

Read more

Duskin is the weirdest company I’ve seen in a long time. The name is a mashup of the English “Dust” and the Japanese word for cleaning cloth, “zokin,” which tells you everything about where this company started, and yet nothing why its biggest business is Japan’s most beloved donut chain.

A company that prides themselves of renting out chemical floor mops and while Pon de Ring donuts (my favorite donut in the whole world by the way) under one ticker genuinely broke my brain.

So I did what I always do: I ran the numbers to see whether this weird concuction is a buying opportunity or a value trap.

Executive Summary

KonichiValue Score for Duskin Co. Ltd. (4665.T): Sell | Last: 4,478 JPY | Mkt Cap: 214.67 Billion JPY

Read more

I finally got around to reading the book Active Value Investing by the other day. The man is one of the greats, and I have learned more about pinning down a company's intrinsic value from him than from Warren Buffett himself.

Okinawa Cellular Telephone popped up on my quantitative screener last week with metrics that immediately reminded me of his brilliant thesis on Charter Communications (CHTR). I listened to an interview where he raved about Charter because it operated as a localized broadband monopoly that generated absurd, predictable cash flow while relentlessly cannibalizing its own share count to force per-share value higher.

Okinawa Cellular runs this exact same localized monopoly playbook in Japan, but they pair it with a pristine, unlevered balance sheet instead of the terrifying debt loads typically found in American cable companies. I had to dig deep into the valuation math to see if he, and I, would actually love this stock today.

Executive Summary

Read more

Kioxia Holdings (285A.T): Hold | Last: ¥71,870 | Mkt Cap: ¥39.45T (US$242.6B)

In 1987, Dr. Fujio Masuoka filed a patent at Toshiba for something the world was not ready for. It was NAND flash memory, the foundation underneath every smartphone, every SSD, and every AI data center on the planet. Toshiba took the credit, paid him less than a million dollars for the patents, and then spent the next three decades systematically running the parent company into the ground:

That orphan is now Kioxia Holdings (285A.T). The stock climbed 6,500% from its IPO, ripped to ¥112,700, briefly overtook Toyota as Japan’s most valuable company! Right after, the stock dropped 36% in weeks. The dip is either the buy of a decade or the top of a cycle.

The market is hurling billions a quarter at software and AI startups with no FCF, while the industrial monopolies actually building the AI boom trade like regulated utilities.

Kioxia is the cleanest pure-play on that gap.

Executive Summary

Read more

It’s as if Toshiba angered the Greek gods and caught a reverse Midas touch…Instead of gold, everything they touched turned to ash. They championed HD DVD right as the entire planet switched to Blu-ray. Then they paid an insanely criticized premium to buy the US nuclear firm Westinghouse in 2006, betting their entire fortunes on a global nuclear renaissa…

Read more

If you enjoy it, please give it a like!

If you enjoy it, please give it a like!

Get full access to KonichiValue Japan at www.konichivalue.com/subscribe

Today, , my dear friend and mastermind behind the institutional-grade equity research over at Asian Century Stocks, joins me to break down South Korea’s massive reforms, the brutal reality of Asian value traps, and why the global AI race is going to end in total commoditization.

(Disclaimer: Any stocks or investments discussed are not financial advice; this conversation is strictly for entertainment purposes only.)

1. The Five-Year Bet: Which Asian Country Gets Your Entire Net Worth?

Michael Fritzell: South Korea. They are actively copying the corporate reform playbook that the Tokyo Stock Exchange pioneered. While everyone is staring at the major indices, I see massive, underappreciated value across the small-cap space, a universe of two to three thousand stocks that are significantly cheaper than anything you will find in other developed markets.

The real catalyst is the mid-2025 introduction of fiduciary duty for directors. Directors will finally be legally responsible for all shareholders’ interests, not just the controlling family blocks. This makes minority abuse and shady related-party transactions incredibly difficult to pull off. Shareholder activism is blossoming early here, meaning minority investors can simply piggyback on campaigns by powerhouse firms like Oasis and Dalton to unlock deep value.

However, do not touch the major index. I would never buy the Kospi right here. Its entire rally has been artificially driven by AI CapEx and memory chip stocks experiencing a massive squeeze in DRAM prices, which is completely unsustainable over the long term.

2. The Dumbest Value Trap Western Investors Fall For in Asia

Michael Fritzell: Investors consistently fail to look at the actual character of the people running the business. The hard truth about investing in Asia, or honestly anywhere, is that you cannot rely on the legal system to protect you. At the end of the day, if these people want to cheat you, they can.

You have to ignore the spreadsheet and audit their public track record instead. Look at their historical capital allocation, their corporate structure complexity, and whether they have a habit of diluting shareholders or routing money into sister companies.

A stock can look flawless on paper with 60% to 70% of its market cap sitting entirely in cash. But if the founder has a decades-long track record of refusing to pay out a single cent, that cash position is completely irrelevant, it is a value trap. You are stuck waiting for a generational shift, like a son taking over the business and finally launching buybacks or dividends.

3. Singapore vs. Tokyo: Why Do Expats Choose the Lion City?

Michael Fritzell: Singapore wins purely on the perception that the hurdles to entry are lower, backed by world-class government marketing. The Singaporean government literally sponsored part of the production for Crazy Rich Asians because they understand how to build a global brand name. It just feels easier to integrate there initially.

Objectively, Tokyo is one of the coolest cities on earth, and Japan has an incredible, relaxed vibe where people seem genuinely more content. If Japan offered a legitimate golden visa and competitive tax benefits for expats, people like me would flock to Tokyo over Singapore in a heartbeat.

4. Will Japan’s GDP Shrink or Grow Over the Next Decade?

Michael Fritzell: Japan is fundamentally losing its structural competitiveness. Giants like Toyota and Daikin used to completely dominate export markets in developing countries, but they are now facing brutal competition from private Chinese companies led by young, hungry, 40-something managers.

Because of this, I expect Japan to suffer continued market share loss and a relative decline in GDP per capita. To reverse this, Japan desperately needs aggressive entrepreneurship from younger people who want to get rich, rather than just coasting on legacy firms formed in the 1950s and 60s like Sony and Casio. We need to see a Japanese equivalent of Spotify pop up, but those examples are incredibly rare right now.

5. The Best Political Leader in Asian History

Michael Fritzell: Deng Xiaoping. He did an immeasurable service to the Chinese population by dragging the country out of an incredibly backward, painful state during the 1960s. People frequently try to rewrite history, but the reality of that era was exceptionally rough.

That said, history hasn’t ended yet. China remains a communist country, and under the current framework, we still do not know where the economy will ultimately end up.

6. Can the Rest of Asia Compete in the Global AI Race?

Michael Fritzell: The software side of large language models is going to be completely commoditized. China has the capital and resources to copy and keep pace with American models, but outside of the US and China, no one else is going to build a standalone giant.

The structural issue with AI models is a total lack of pricing power because there are too many substitutes. There is very little true differentiation between Gemini, ChatGPT, or DeepSeek. Eventually, the hype will fade, the technology will commoditize, and the rest of the world will simply default to the cheapest, most accessible models provided by Google or Chinese tech giants.

7. Does Europe Have an Economic Future?

Michael Fritzell: Europe will be fine; the absolute doom loop narrative is completely off-base. Europe’s manufacturing base was crushed over the last 30 years because Western multinationals outsourced their factories to China, allowing their technological know-how to be copied. Now, that tech spillover is grinding to a halt as foreign direct investment into China plummets.

Meanwhile, places like the Nordic region maintain incredibly vibrant entrepreneurship and exceptional living standards. The current financial media is dominated by social-media-driven culture wars and a hyper-hot US stock market narrative. Back in 2010, the narrative was that the US was dying under a mountain of debt. Narratives shift rapidly, and the current misperceptions about Europe will disappear over time.

8. Are Chinese Stocks Uninvestable or the Bargain of the Decade?

Michael Fritzell: Over the long term, you simply should not invest in countries that refuse to protect minority shareholders. In China, the penalties for cheating foreign investors are virtually nonexistent. The Chinese internet index (KWEB) has been entirely flat for 10 years during the greatest Nasdaq tech bull market in history, and the CSI 300 is flat over a 35-year horizon.

This isn’t because the underlying companies are bad, they are actually performing very well operationally. It is the direct result of continuous share dilution and the atrocious treatment of minorities. Aside from massive, shareholder-friendly exceptions like Tencent or NetEase, foreign capital is heavily exposed. The domestic A-share market will survive because locals need an inflation hedge to protect their savings, but for foreigners, it remains highly hazardous.

9. The One Asian Market to Avoid Right Now

Michael Fritzell: India. Prime Minister Modi has done fantastic things for the country’s infrastructure and entrepreneurship, but the valuation multiples make absolutely no sense. You have standard Indian consumer stocks trading at 40, 50, or 60 times PE.

These businesses are not managed any better than equivalent companies in the Philippines or Indonesia, yet in Indonesia, you are only paying 8 times PE for the exact same fundamental quality. When a market’s story becomes that extreme, it is time to take the other side of the trade.

10. Asia’s Finest: The Most Important Business Leader in the Region

Michael Fritzell: Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC. Building a $2 trillion powerhouse out of Taiwan, a small island of just 22 million people, is one of the most remarkable feats in business history. Not even mainland China has successfully built a trillion-dollar company.

Chang completely revolutionized global tech by pioneering the independent foundry model. Instead of building closed ecosystems like Intel, TSMC acted as a neutral manufacturing partner for fabless chip designers worldwide. This strategy unlocked massive scale, generated immense returns on equity, and allowed them to out-invest the entire world in R&D. Even if they face future headwinds, the modern technological world entirely exists because of Morris Chang’s blueprint.

Today, Michael Fritzell, my dear friend and mastermind behind the institutional-grade equity research over at Asian Century Stocks, joins me to break down South Korea’s massive reforms, the brutal reality of Asian value traps, and why the global AI race is going to end in total commoditization.

(Disclaimer: Any stocks or investments discussed are not financial advice; this conversation is strictly for entertainment purposes only.)

1. The Five-Year Bet: Which Asian Country Gets Your Entire Net Worth?

Michael Fritzell: South Korea. They are actively copying the corporate reform playbook that the Tokyo Stock Exchange pioneered. While everyone is staring at the major indices, I see massive, underappreciated value across the small-cap space, a universe of two to three thousand stocks that are significantly cheaper than anything you will find in other developed markets.

The real catalyst is the mid-2025 introduction of fiduciary duty for directors. Directors will finally be legally responsible for all shareholders’ interests, not just the controlling family blocks. This makes minority abuse and shady related-party transactions incredibly difficult to pull off. Shareholder activism is blossoming early here, meaning minority investors can simply piggyback on campaigns by powerhouse firms like Oasis and Dalton to unlock deep value.

However, do not touch the major index. I would never buy the Kospi right here. Its entire rally has been artificially driven by AI CapEx and memory chip stocks experiencing a massive squeeze in DRAM prices, which is completely unsustainable over the long term.

2. The Dumbest Value Trap Western Investors Fall For in Asia

Michael Fritzell: Investors consistently fail to look at the actual character of the people running the business. The hard truth about investing in Asia, or honestly anywhere, is that you cannot rely on the legal system to protect you. At the end of the day, if these people want to cheat you, they can.

You have to ignore the spreadsheet and audit their public track record instead. Look at their historical capital allocation, their corporate structure complexity, and whether they have a habit of diluting shareholders or routing money into sister companies.

A stock can look flawless on paper with 60% to 70% of its market cap sitting entirely in cash. But if the founder has a decades-long track record of refusing to pay out a single cent, that cash position is completely irrelevant, it is a value trap. You are stuck waiting for a generational shift, like a son taking over the business and finally launching buybacks or dividends.

3. Singapore vs. Tokyo: Why Do Expats Choose the Lion City?

Michael Fritzell: Singapore wins purely on the perception that the hurdles to entry are lower, backed by world-class government marketing. The Singaporean government literally sponsored part of the production for Crazy Rich Asians because they understand how to build a global brand name. It just feels easier to integrate there initially.

Objectively, Tokyo is one of the coolest cities on earth, and Japan has an incredible, relaxed vibe where people seem genuinely more content. If Japan offered a legitimate golden visa and competitive tax benefits for expats, people like me would flock to Tokyo over Singapore in a heartbeat.

4. Will Japan’s GDP Shrink or Grow Over the Next Decade?

Michael Fritzell: Japan is fundamentally losing its structural competitiveness. Giants like Toyota and Daikin used to completely dominate export markets in developing countries, but they are now facing brutal competition from private Chinese companies led by young, hungry, 40-something managers.

Because of this, I expect Japan to suffer continued market share loss and a relative decline in GDP per capita. To reverse this, Japan desperately needs aggressive entrepreneurship from younger people who want to get rich, rather than just coasting on legacy firms formed in the 1950s and 60s like Sony and Casio. We need to see a Japanese equivalent of Spotify pop up, but those examples are incredibly rare right now.

5. The Best Political Leader in Asian History

Michael Fritzell: Deng Xiaoping. He did an immeasurable service to the Chinese population by dragging the country out of an incredibly backward, painful state during the 1960s. People frequently try to rewrite history, but the reality of that era was exceptionally rough.

That said, history hasn’t ended yet. China remains a communist country, and under the current framework, we still do not know where the economy will ultimately end up.

6. Can the Rest of Asia Compete in the Global AI Race?

Michael Fritzell: The software side of large language models is going to be completely commoditized. China has the capital and resources to copy and keep pace with American models, but outside of the US and China, no one else is going to build a standalone giant.

The structural issue with AI models is a total lack of pricing power because there are too many substitutes. There is very little true differentiation between Gemini, ChatGPT, or DeepSeek. Eventually, the hype will fade, the technology will commoditize, and the rest of the world will simply default to the cheapest, most accessible models provided by Google or Chinese tech giants.

7. Does Europe Have an Economic Future?

Michael Fritzell: Europe will be fine; the absolute doom loop narrative is completely off-base. Europe’s manufacturing base was crushed over the last 30 years because Western multinationals outsourced their factories to China, allowing their technological know-how to be copied. Now, that tech spillover is grinding to a halt as foreign direct investment into China plummets.

Meanwhile, places like the Nordic region maintain incredibly vibrant entrepreneurship and exceptional living standards. The current financial media is dominated by social-media-driven culture wars and a hyper-hot US stock market narrative. Back in 2010, the narrative was that the US was dying under a mountain of debt. Narratives shift rapidly, and the current misperceptions about Europe will disappear over time.

8. Are Chinese Stocks Uninvestable or the Bargain of the Decade?

Michael Fritzell: Over the long term, you simply should not invest in countries that refuse to protect minority shareholders. In China, the penalties for cheating foreign investors are virtually nonexistent. The Chinese internet index (KWEB) has been entirely flat for 10 years during the greatest Nasdaq tech bull market in history, and the CSI 300 is flat over a 35-year horizon.

This isn’t because the underlying companies are bad, they are actually performing very well operationally. It is the direct result of continuous share dilution and the atrocious treatment of minorities. Aside from massive, shareholder-friendly exceptions like Tencent or NetEase, foreign capital is heavily exposed. The domestic A-share market will survive because locals need an inflation hedge to protect their savings, but for foreigners, it remains highly hazardous.

9. The One Asian Market to Avoid Right Now

Michael Fritzell: India. Prime Minister Modi has done fantastic things for the country’s infrastructure and entrepreneurship, but the valuation multiples make absolutely no sense. You have standard Indian consumer stocks trading at 40, 50, or 60 times PE.

These businesses are not managed any better than equivalent companies in the Philippines or Indonesia, yet in Indonesia, you are only paying 8 times PE for the exact same fundamental quality. When a market’s story becomes that extreme, it is time to take the other side of the trade.

10. Asia’s Finest: The Most Important Business Leader in the Region

Michael Fritzell: Morris Chang, the founder of TSMC. Building a $2 trillion powerhouse out of Taiwan, a small island of just 22 million people, is one of the most remarkable feats in business history. Not even mainland China has successfully built a trillion-dollar company.

Chang completely revolutionized global tech by pioneering the independent foundry model. Instead of building closed ecosystems like Intel, TSMC acted as a neutral manufacturing partner for fabless chip designers worldwide. This strategy unlocked massive scale, generated immense returns on equity, and allowed them to out-invest the entire world in R&D. Even if they face future headwinds, the modern technological world entirely exists because of Morris Chang’s blueprint.

Get full access to KonichiValue Japan at www.konichivalue.com/subscribe

Chofu Seisakusho looks like the ultimate value investor dream on paper.

Heat pumps are the new industrial gold rush. As extreme temperatures drive massive global demand for climate-control technology, the entire HVAC sector is catching a massive tailwind. As a premier expert in this exact hardware, Chofu should be printing money right now.

Instead, we find them sitting here in the dirt. Because how does a profitable company in a booming sector trade at less than half of its book value?!

My immediate gut feeling was that the book value had to be a lie. But the assets are very real. Their technology is genuinely world class. They hold over JPY 91 billion in long term investments. Meanwhile, the entire market capitalization sits around JPY 69 billion.

I assumed their assets were tied up in worthless inventory or obsolete factories. But the reality of Chofu Seisakusho is much stranger and far more frustrating.

So follow me as I dive into the most absurd capital allocator I’ve ever seen to determine if you should actually buy this stock:

Executive Summary

Get 20% off forever

Read more

Europe stubbornly refused to adopt air conditioning for decades. The continent romanticized sweltering in brick ovens, resulting in an entirely preventable mega-death of the elderly during heatwaves. Temperatures routinely smash past the 40°C mark across Europe today.

This proves a terrifying global truth about climate change: You can’t escape global warming by opening a window anymore! And sadly, the only real weapons we have against this are air conditioners and heat pumps.

This is not just a European awakening. The trend for an ever-increasing demand for HVAC systems is global, and investors are taking note. However, they all to often blindly chase the obvious mega-caps while ignoring the infrastructure and maintenance companies that actually keep these systems running.

And turns out, Japan is home to the strongest HVAC companies in the world!

Therefore, I am writing this report to ruthlessly dissect four Japanese HVAC pure-plays through a strict value-investing lens, stripping away market noise to identify the most compelling investment opportunity.

Here are the most interesting HVAC companies in Japan:

Read more

For Part 1 & 2 of this series on Japan’s FinTwit (www9945 and Mikimaru), see:

&

If Mikimaru is the perks-loving small-cap hunter and www9945 is the street-scouting everyman, then Kabu1000 is Japan’s final boss of retail investing.

Kabu1000 has been around the investing scene forever!

He started in the late 1980s with just ¥400,000, never took a ”normal” job, and methodically turned that stake into over ¥900 million. Today he’s widely seen as Japan’s most famous individual investor, and the purest expression of classic value investing in the country.

What makes him different is how he got to 1000x his money: By obsessing over balance sheets, only touching stocks that trade below their intrinsic value, and insisting on a margin of safety big enough that he can sleep at night. He loves the kind of companies most people scroll past; asset-heavy industrials, land-rich old-economy names, small caps trading at a steep discount to book, especially when there’s a realistic catalyst like a buyout, restructuring, or asset sale.

Kabu1000 builds a tight portfolio of roughly 20–30 names where downside is protected by hard assets and upside comes from Japan-specific tailwinds: Tokyo Stock Exchange pressure on low-P/B stocks, rising buyouts, and governance reforms slowly forcing lazy balance sheets to work harder.

In this final part of the series, I’ll walk through his journey, the principles he refuses to compromise on, his holdings, and what the rest of us can steal from Japan’s most famous retail investor.

Kabu1000’s Journey

If one individual bridges Japan’s past and future of value investing, it’s Kabu1000 (かぶ1000 - which means “Stock 1000x”).

He started investing as a middle-schooler in 1988, turned ¥40万 (≈$3k) of savings into ¥9億 (≈$7.5 million) over time (a 1000-bagger gain, which inspired his moniker), and by 2011 had reached the “億り人” seven-figure club. As of 2026, he has 38 years of market experience, has authored multiple investment books, and boasts 350,000+ followers on X.

Despite this fame, Kabu1000 is known for his almost academic rigor and humility. He frequented a local brokerage in junior high, amassed ¥3 million by 9th grade, ¥10 million by 10th grade, and ¥15 million by 11th grade through savvy stock plays.

After finishing a finance vocational school, he even declined a job offer from a securities firm to go full-time investor straight away. In his late 30s, he achieved a ¥100 million portfolio, and by early 2026 his cumulative trading profits officially hit the monumental ¥900 million mark (not including dividends).

Remarkably, he’s never held a traditional job or even a side gig. A “rooted-from-birth professional investor”, as one article put it. With this lifetime of experience, Kabu1000 has become a sort of philosopher of value investing in Japan, often sharing wisdom in interviews and lectures. (His recent book is literally titled “The Way to Become a Wise Individual Investor”).

Kabu1000’s Investment Philosophy

At the core, Kabu1000’s investment philosophy follows classic Graham-and-Buffett principles, distilled into a few key tenets he often cites.

First, investing is about thorough analysis, principal protection, and adequate returns; anything that doesn’t meet those criteria is speculation.

Second, never put all your capital in one basket, taking on excessive risk will lead to mental anguish and ruin.

Third, the difference between an investor and a speculator is attitude toward market fluctuations: The speculator tries to predict price moves to make a quick profit, while the investor focuses on acquiring good securities at good prices and holding them.

Fourth, he aggressively preaches the margin of safety. Kabu1000 takes Benjamin Graham’s classic playbook and applies it to Japan’s notoriously cash-rich, low-valuation market. He hunts for asset-heavy companies trading at rock-bottom P/B ratios, buying deep discounts and holding until a catalyst, like a buyout, restructuring, or activist pressure, unlocks the trapped wealth.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s 2024 push to raise ROE perfectly validated his strategy, sparking massive buybacks and dividend hikes among low-P/B stocks. He expects this value-unlocking trend for “低PBR、低PER銘柄” (low P/B and P/E names) to accelerate alongside rising M&A. As major corporate shake ups, like the previously rumored Honda-Nissan alliance, force lucrative asset sales, his playbook is simple: Buy these hidden gems long before the market wakes up.

Kabu1000 typically runs a fairly concentrated portfolio (around 20–30 stocks), much smaller than www9945’s hundred-plus names. “I keep about 20 core holdings, focusing on those with the highest expected value and aligning with my time horizon,” he wrote for his 2025 strategy.

He finds that number strikes a balance between concentration and diversification, enough to avoid the “all eggs in one basket” pitfall he warns against but focused enough to beat the market if his picks are right. And indeed, his performance has often been stellar: He targets 20% annual returns, and in 2021–2025 he achieved around +25% each year (2024 was +22.6% before tax, but in 2025 he absolutely crushed it with a +64.53% return, banking over ¥258 million in profit).

This comfortably beat Tokyo indices. When the 2008 Lehman Shock hit, he temporarily pivoted to small-cap growth, posting a 70% gain in 2012, before shifting back to value. His long-term track record proves his mastery of capital preservation: He captures massive upside in bull markets (+¥148 million in 2023) while strictly capping his losses during crashes.

Looking ahead to 2026, Kabu1000 is slightly shifting his playbook to adapt to a permanently inflationary Japan. He is heavily targeting domestic supply chain reshoring and factory automation plays to combat labor shortages. Surprisingly for a deep-value purist, he's also now willing to buy "Growth" stocks trading above a 1.0x P/B ratio, provided their future trajectory and technological moat justify the price.

Kabu1000’s Stock Holdings

Get 20% off forever

Read more

Japan is currently the hottest new thing on the block. What used to be an impenetrable, mystical realm for millionaires and lifelong anime nerds, is now every Instagrammer’s wettest dream.

Ever since the post-COVID era, when the rest of the world decided to become exorbitantly expensive, Japan has become ridiculously cheap. The country is suddenly sittin…

Read more

I recently wrote an article stating that Seven & i Holdings (7-Eleven’s parent company name) was one of the most likely buyout candidates in Japan. I must reiterate that nobody should ever buy a stock based purely on its buyout potential. If anyone can actually purchase this bloated conglomerate, it will likely be a Japanese company, as we just saw exactly what happens when a foreign entity attempts a hostile takeover.

The stock got hammered by the failed Couche-Tard takeover bid, and is now trading around the 1,900 yen mark, or a drop of about 23% from their buyout-fueled peaks.

If you ignore this M&A drama, Seven & i is basically a highly profitable Japanese convenience store chain tied to a struggling North American business. The fundamentals look really good, and it is definitely undervalued on today’s earnings, but is the future rosy enough to make this stock a buy?

Executive Summary

Following the format of a Mizuho Securities Equity Research Executive Summary, here is the reality of the situation (please tell me if you enjoy it or not):

Get 20% off forever

Read more