"A Column Published on Toyo Keizai ONLINE" One Line Graph Will Change Your Investments

Good morning, this is Matsushita.

Do you know what a "line chart" is?

Of course, you do, right?

Surely, you learn it in the upper grades of elementary school.

However, unfortunately, even if you know a line chart,

there are very few investors who know that a line chart is a powerful weapon.

Why a line chart is a powerful weapon for investors?

Let me explain how to use it as well.

Write down your daily or monthly

investment funds balance,

and chart it as a time-series graph.

The most powerful weapon for you,

the "funds curve" line chart, is completed.

This line chart literally represents the movement of your funds

on a daily (monthly) basis.

Whether money is decreasing or increasing,

you can see it at a glance, and it changes moment by moment.

If you make a habit of keeping this graph,

your investments will surely change.

If you are losing money,

the line chart will continue to trend downward to the right,

if you are making a profit,

the line chart will continue to trend upward to the right.

If you continue to keep this graph while you are losing money,

you will inevitably want to change your trading.

Just like I did 14 years ago.

Investors check their account balances every day on their brokerage's website,

so even without a chart, if the balance keeps decreasing,

you might think they will take some action.

However, the digital numbers on a PC or smartphone monitor do not bite into our brains and hearts,

they do not move emotions, and do not lead to action.

But if you use your own hands to draw a line chart in a notebook,

the "hand stimulation" will push your brain and heart,

and your actions will change.

This task is one of the "writing investments" I strongly recommend alongside an investment diary,

an "investment that uses your hands."

This is one of the practices I advocate.

In fact, since I started investing,

two years into it, I began drawing a line chart of my account balance.

Through that activity, my buying and selling changed.

When listening to voices from market investors,

I often hear the disappointment lines: "We can’t change no matter what,"

but those who cannot change,

please start by keeping a line chart every month (or every day).

Simply checking daily online information or frantic trading

Simple tasks are what will change your investments.