A column is currently published on Toyo Keizai ONLINE. Opportunities come to you on their own.

Good morning, this is Matsushita.

Investors always think, "I want to seize opportunities."

They think so all the time.

However, those who can seize opportunities are a small group of market investors.

The reasons you cannot seize opportunities are twofold.

1. You are not prepared

2. You cannot wait

In other words, opportunities come to those who have prepared and wait, if you wait patiently, they will come to you on their own.

Let us take last year, 2016, in the stock market as an example.

The start of last year saw stock prices fall due to a decline in Chinese (emerging) markets and crude oil prices.

As you can see from the NY crude oil chart,

this decline was part of the end of an eight-year long cycle,

and it was an environment where the bottom would be reached someday and a new cycle would

start, so waiting was prudent.

On 2/11 the lows were hit and the market began to rise,

and the long-awaited long-term eight-year cycle reversal arrived.

On the same day, the NY Dow formed a double bottom with 1/20,

and it also formed the start of a long-term cycle.

In the domestic stock market, the stocks reached a mid- to long-term bottom in either the February or June

Brexit, completing a bottoming process,

and last year there was a single opportunity for a mid-term two-year cycle to buy.

It was a perfect opportunity.

This is the opportunity for investors who were prepared with a contrarian strategy.

In contrast, for investors who had prepared with a momentum-trading strategy,

after the U.S. presidential election, a once-in-a-lifetime chance arrived.

Last year's bullish uptrend in the domestic stock market lasted only a short period, from mid-November to the start of the new year’s first trading session in January.

Indeed, this was also a clear opportunity.

If you decide your strategy, set your rules, and prepare,

for investors who prepared, both timeframes were indeed opportunities, and they could earn profits.

However, most investors in the market were unfortunately not sufficiently prepared,

and since they could not wait properly, they could not seize the precious opportunities last year either.

Understand that opportunities come automatically from the other side if you wait while prepared.

If you understand that, what you should do is to

prepare and wait.