The Joy of Engaging in the 'World's Greatest Game' of Investment — An Interview with Tesuta

──What prompted you to start investing, Mr. Tesuta?

Tesuta: The trigger was finding a book about stock trading in a bookstore. At that time, it had become easy to trade stocks online, and there were many books about stocks in bookstores. Initially, I had a complex image of stocks and investments, thinking they were something people in their 40s and 50s did.

However, reading a book I picked up at the bookstore, I learned that even without knowledge of fundamentals, I could trade using day trading. At that time, blogs were mainstream, and reading posts about people winning daily made me think, 'Maybe I could do this too.' That was the starting point.

──Did you have any rules when you started investing?

Tesuta: From the beginning, I decided that if I lost 1 million yen, I would step back, save another million yen, and then return to the world of investment. In other words, I had set my maximum tolerable risk at 1 million yen.

But in reality, it was tough to win at first. I was down 300,000 yen in the first month and another 150,000 yen the next month, totaling a loss of 450,000 yen. However, I eventually turned to profit, so I never reached a loss of 1 million yen, but it was indeed tough initially. Things didn't go as they were described in the books. Nevertheless, I felt I was growing every day.

──You mentioned the initial phase was tough. What was the toughest aspect?

Tesuta: The uncertainty of the future and not knowing whether what I was doing was right. There was no one around me trading stocks, and no one to teach me, so I had no answers.

For example, when you study for exams, there are textbooks, and what's written in them is generally backed by a certain validity. But in the world of investment, it's not always clear whether what you're doing is correct, and what was once considered right can become wrong as times change.