The Day Trader Who Turned $13,600 Into $153 Million
Takashi Kotegawa (aka BNF/J-Com man) is one of Japan’s most famous day traders.
He apparently made a fortune trading stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the early 2000s.
If you’re inspired by my feat of turning $12,415 into $7.13 million** (learn more in my book “An American Hedge Fund”)…
… or if you’re impressed by top Challenge trader Tim Grittani who turned $1,500 into over $13.5 million in 10 years*…
Prepare to be even more inspired when you read about this guy…
Legend has it Takashi Kotegawa grew his small account from roughly $13,600 to $153 million in about eight years. Sometimes making millions per trade.
So … how did he do it?
The exact details are a bit of a mystery — there’s little information out there about his trades and strategies. And to add to the intrigue, the guy seems to have disappeared…
But here’s what I’ve managed to dig up on the mysterious and obscure trader Takashi Kotegawa.
Let’s go!
Table of Contents
Who Is Takashi Kotegawa?
Here’s what we know: Takashi Kotegawa was born on March 5, 1978, in Ichikawa, Chiba, Japan.
He started trading stocks on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in the bear market of 2001.
Despite being a multi-millionaire, he stays humble. He doesn’t buy fancy cars or eat lavish meals. He rides a bike and likes to eat ramen.
One thing he did splurge on … a top-floor apartment that he bought for 400 million yen. (Roughly $3.65 million at 2021 exchange rates.)
Takashi’s also known in the Japanese trading community by his chatroom username “BNF.” And he earned the nickname “J-Com man” after one of his most famous trades…
In 2005, he made millions on a single trade in J-Com Holdings after its IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
That opportunity was thanks to an error made by a trader at Mizuho Securities. This trader accidentally sold 610,000 shares at one yen each instead of selling one share at 610,000 yen. Ouch.
The huge sell order sent the stock price crashing. And Takashi saw an opportunity.
He bought 7,100 shares while the price was down. But he wasn’t the only one. The low price caught the attention of other traders and investors. A buying frenzy followed…
Takashi sold part of his position into the bounce and held some shares overnight. By the end of the trade, he had made more than $17 million!
Find out how it all went down in this video…
Now many people wonder about the ‘magic’ strategy Takashi used to make millions in the stock market. Seems his strategies are as obscure as the trader himself…
What Do We Know About Takashi Kotegawa’s Trading Strategies?
There aren’t a lot of specific details about Takashi Kotegawa’s trading strategies. Unlike me, he doesn’t share every trade publicly or share much information at all about how he made his millions.
But apparently, he thinks it’s easier to make money in bear markets than in bull markets. He looks for short-term rebound plays in stocks that are down.
Some describe Takashi Kotegawa’s trading strategy as divergence day trading. He uses indicators like Bollinger Bands®, relative strength index (RSI), volume ratio, and the 25-day moving average. He likes to buy stocks that are at least 20% below the 25-day moving average and profit from the bounce.
But he doesn’t treat all stocks the same…
Since the markets constantly change, he adapts the percentage he looks for based on the overall market and individual sectors. He gets a feel for how stocks in different sectors move and how fast they rebound.
Like all day traders, he likes to capitalize on momentum.
In this video, a reporter claims Takashi is a former video game champion and “a gambler at heart.” Yet, he stays disciplined and allegedly has a 60% win rate.
Like me, he cuts losses quickly. But he has more patience and lets his winners run. He’ll hold positions for up to a few days.
The Importance of Having the Right Trading Mindset
Takashi Kotegawa has a trading mindset.
To me, it doesn’t seem like he’s focused on the money. For one, he doesn’t show off and spend his cash on flashy cars or big purchases.
And he doesn’t carry around large amounts of cash. His concern is its presence would hurt his ability to make smart trading decisions — in penny stocks or other securities.
He prefers to focus on price action, charts, market sentiment, and hot sectors.
Want to learn more about day trading penny stocks? Get my free guide to trading this niche now!
The Bottom Line: What Can You Learn From Takashi Kotegawa?
In a lot of ways, Takashi Kotegawa has a similar mindset and strategy to my own.
He cuts losses quickly, doesn’t focus on money, and looks for patterns that repeat and that have worked for him in the past.
He even likes to buy stocks when they’re down and profit from the bounce. It’s similar to my favorite pattern — the morning panic dip buy.
But the major differences? He trades with a massive account and takes huge position sizes.
That and the lack of details about his strategy makes it hard for new traders to learn from or replicate. And after the market crash in 2008, it’s rumored that Takashi left the stock market and went into real estate investing.
So we may never know the details of how this famous trader made his millions.
But he’s a trader, not a teacher…
Trading Challenge
I, on the other hand, love to teach. I didn’t have a teacher when I started trading. I had to learn from my losses and dumb mistakes. It was frustrating.
Now I teach students everything I’ve learned from my 20+ years of experience trading penny stocks. I’ve made over $7.1 in profits over my career, and I share all my trades publicly to help other traders learn.*
I’ve also made thousands of video lessons and I give weekly live trading and Q&A webinars for Trading Challenge students, Plus, students get access to archived webinars and a community of traders in my Challenge chat room.
I have 10+ millionaire students and all of them have come from my Trading Challenge.* If you want to learn the patterns and strategies I use — apply today.
What do you know about Takashi Kotegawa? Let me know in the comments … I love to hear from you!
Disclaimers
*This level of successful trading is not typical and does not reflect the experience of the majority of individuals using the services and products offered on this website. From January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2020, typical users of the products and services offered by this website reported earning, on average, an estimated $49.91 in profit. Timothy Sykes has a minority shareholder interest in the platform.
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Hey Everyone,
As many of you already know I grew up in a middle class family and didn't have many luxuries. But through trading I was able to change my circumstances --not just for me -- but for my parents as well. I now want to help you and thousands of other people from all around the world achieve similar results!
Which is why I've launched my Trading Challenge. I’m extremely determined to create a millionaire trader out of one my students and hopefully it will be you.
So when you get a chance make sure you check it out.
PS: Don’t forget to check out my 30 Day Bootcamp, it will teach you everything you need to know about trading.
I do live in Japan. The program on the top video (the YouTube vid) was aired in December 2008.
Mr. BNF goes into his philosophy in the sitdown session with the journalist, Hiroshi Kume (one of my favorite TV presenters…he’s not on so much anymore, unfortunately). BNF-san says that he doesn’t make money to use it. Aside from the amazing condo he owns (from which you can see the building where my current day job is), he lives a very frugal lifestyle. No car, no travel, etc. His concept of making money isn’t to use the money, but he just likes to run the market for the sake of running the market.
There’s several other videos on BNF, both in English and Japanese, out there. He was a large presence in the day trading community here from 2000-2008, but, recently, not much has been heard from him.
The Bloomberg clip talks about another trader.
Hi Timothy, I paid for his strategy via his website, on the 17th of January which forces you to pay with Bitcoin. After numerous attempts via WhatsApp and Telegram to either get the strategy or my funds. NO REPLY. Personally I think he is a hoax. Please do not send money to him.
I believe this is scam
My First time reading this
difficult to take this site seriously given the number of typos.
‘…deeply regrets that he failed to earn 500 million yen at that time’. Lol @that!!!
Yea i read about this guy before, he got a huge break in the form of a fat finger:
On December 8, 2005 an order from Mizuho Securities meant to sell 1 share of J-Com Co for 610,000 yen was mistakenly entered as a sale of 610,000 shares at 1 yen, resulting in an estimate loss of $347 million. Following the incident, though a considerable number of firms who had profitted from the order misplacement agreed to hand back their earnings (41.38%), a good number of individual traders refused to do so, as they were not obliged under Japanese law. Such was the case of B.N.F, who managed to amass, in a period of just ten minutes, a figure of 2 billion yen (apr. US$20 million).
the old saying “the harder i work the luckier i get” comes to mind.