Significance of Japanese Housewives in Forex Markets

If you ever wondered about the power of housewives or if you ever under-estimated the work that housewives do, you should definitely read this !

Ask any intelligent forex trader and he should be aware of what I am talking about!

AS YOU MIGHT BE AWARE, IN JAPAN, WHICH IS THE THIRD LARGEST FOREX TRADING COUNTRY IN THE WORLD IN TERMS OF TRADING VOLUME, RETAIL INVESTORS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN VERY ACTIVE. WHAT MAY SURPRISE YOU IS THE FACT THAT OF THESE RETAIL INVESTORS, JAPANESE HOUSEWIVES WERE VERY INFLUENTIAL TRADERS FOR ALMOST A DECADE. THEY DID MUCH MORE THAN THE HOUSEHOLD WORK IN THE FIRST DECADE OF THE NEW MILLENNIUM

The primary reason these ladies stayed at home was to give their children the best upbringing during the child’s very important formative years. Trading Forex gave them the flexibility to earn an income and to attend to the needs of their children at the same time from their homes

As you might be aware, Japan has been well known for the low interest rates (near zero % for most of the decade). This was the secondary reason for the housewives to delve into the currency market and find arbitrage opportunity. They usually used the Ichimoku cloud strategy and were fond of the AUD (Australian Dollar) because they can borrow in Yen at very low rates, close to 0%, and then buy the Aussie dollar in order to make profit with the interest rate differential, as long as the AUD goes above their entry position level.

Bank of Japan officials said in 2007 that the housewives’ trading activity helped to stabilize currency markets because of their tendency to buy on dips and sell into rallies. Most of the trading they did was carried out through online margin accounts, which offered almost 100 times leverage.