Chapter 1: The Cruel Truth of the Market — The Only World Where Effort Is Not Rewarded

Starting from today, I will begin a serialized article titled “Is the Market My ATM?! ~The Former Small Factory Technician Who Reached a ‘Lose-Proof’ System and the Philosophy of Freedom~.”

It is mainly a compilation of the blog posts I have written so far, a sort of personal history of myself, and I hope you will enjoy it.

【Episode 1: The Greatest Drawdown of My Life and the Paradox of Effort】
In 1999, on a day when the skies over Higashi-Osaka grew pale

My life was struck by a dramatic “drawdown” in 1999.

Until then, I was living as an engineer at my father’s small factory in Higashi-Osaka.

Back then, I was the very image of a “craftsman in manufacturing.” To create the ideal rice cooker, I cooked as much as three shō of rice (about 4.5 kilograms) every day, and verified each grain’s doneness to the millimeter, as well as its sweetness, stickiness, and resilience, in a frenzy that bordered on madness.

In the world of manufacturing there exists an undeniable “justice.”

A simple and honest rule: “If you put in 100 correct efforts, you will get 100 results back.”

By repeatedly testing and statistically eliminating the causes of defects, product precision would surely improve, and customers’ smiles and stable profits would be promised as the payoff. I blindy believed in the “law of cause and effect.”

However, that peaceful daily life was shattered in an instant by the cruel reality of my father’s company going bankrupt.

At 35, status, honor, and the wealth built up over many years disappeared overnight.

What I had left were two young children to protect and, as a place to restart, a one-way ticket to Saitama Prefecture, a place with no connections or ties.

The Hidden “Corporate Slave Trader” Mask
At my next job, I obtained a managerial position within a company.

Yet, deep inside, I felt a burning thirst: “Is it okay for me to end my life as someone else’s employee, a cog in an organization?”

To soothe that thirst and regain the freedom I once had, I reached for the world of the markets as a kind of magical wand.

My desk at that time happened to face the wall, which was fortunate.

From subordinates and bosses, no one could see what my monitor displayed.

Under the pretense of handling duties, I began a life of a “hidden part-time trader,” staring at stock and FX charts all day long.

I was completely underestimating the market monster at the time.

As a manufacturing engineer who had carried out such precise verifications, I thought, “Solving this numeric puzzle of the market will be easier than finding a flaw in a rice cooker.”

This vanity would prove to be an invitation to hell that followed later, though I hadn’t realized it then.

17 hours of daily verification that yields nothing but 1 yen
After returning home from work, I would immediately open Excel and analyze vast amounts of historical chart data in one-minute intervals.

For days on end, 7 hours, or on weekends more than 18 hours, I battled in front of the computer, chasing a “holy grail” where assets increase in a monotone upward trend in any market environment.

“I’m putting in this much effort, so the market will surely smile at me.” I believed without question.

But the market monster cruelly trampled that belief, shredding it as though it were nothing.

The system I had developed with all my heart, convinced that it was the perfect logic and invested real money in, stopped functioning the moment it began operating—as if a magic had been undone.

The curves that should have been perfect according to yesterday’s verification data transformed into a “cash donation machine” that sucked in my money.

“Effort and money decrease.”

This is an astonishing and irrational fact that hardly occurs in mainstream society.

In ordinary jobs, work ten hours and you at least earn minimum wage. Whether it’s a convenience store part-time job or a road construction site, the more you sweat, the more your bank balance grows—such is the law of this world.

However, in the market, the “law of cause and effect” is completely inverted.

As a result of analyzing charts for ten hours to the point of exhaustion, it is perfectly possible for someone to wipe out a month’s worth of wages earned through someone else’s hard work in an instant.

Conversely, an amateur trader who does nothing and sleeps can, by beginner’s luck, make hundreds of thousands of dollars.

When facing this “paradox of effort,” many people think, “I just need to try harder,” and sink deeper into the mud.

But I will state this with certainty.

The market is a merciless “otherworld” where the moral of “if you work hard, you’ll be rewarded” taught in compulsory education does not apply at all.

Discard the mindset of a slave earning 1,500 yen per hour
From childhood, we are brainwashed to live by the value of “hourly wage.”

“How much do you earn per hour? If you work overtime, you get a supplement.” This sense of security where time and reward are physically linked is the greatest curse that causes ordinary people to keep losing in the market.

In the market, a trade that lasts only a few minutes can yield tens or even hundreds of thousands of yen per hour-equivalent. But that is not the reward for your “labor.” It is simply the result of the convergence of probabilities.

Conversely, even if you stare at the monitor day and night for 24 hours, you may earn nothing, or even lose everything you own.

Trading is not “labor” but “a task” and “statistical execution.”

The moment you bring your personal feelings of “I spent so much time, so I should be rewarded” into it, the market will exploit the gaps in your mind and steal your wealth root and branch.

To make money work for you, you must completely destroy and level this slave mentality of “labor time = reward.”

If you want success, you need a cold realism that accepts the market’s irrationality as a given.

Is the “effort” you believe in the right one?
If you are now studying trading for years, reading hundreds of investment books, and still struggling to win, pause and think.

Is your effort perhaps just “digging a hole in a place where you cannot win”?

The correct effort in the market is not simply watching charts for long hours nor combining complex indicators.

Rather, it is recognizing how ill-suited your own human instincts are for the market and creating a framework to suppress those instincts.

In the next episode, Episode 2, I will discuss the IT bubble frenzy that led me to deeper despair and the true nature of information products as a “sweet poison.”

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