“East Asia Economy ONLINE column now published.” You won’t understand anything unless you go around once.

Good morning, this is Matsushita.

In any job in the world,

there is a cycle.

When I graduated from university and

was officially assigned to a branch office of a pharmaceutical company,

it was from mid to late June.

From then on, I would accompany a senior at the site,

and progress with on-site training,

and I believe in September there was a personnel transfer

for the office senior, and afterward I took over the role

as the official person in charge.

I would have a sales territory and figures,

and finally I would start working on my own.

That was the start of the second half of October.

From there, the year-end passed,

the fiscal year ended, a new year began,

a new sales plan appeared, and I chased after it.

Summer came, and after a year of being assigned to the office,

as the mid-year and year-end approached in September, I finally completed

a full cycle of my first year of work.

With this, I could finally grasp the rhythm of one year.

Normal work tends to follow a rhythm of about one year

repeated every year.

Within that, there is an image of big projects or figures

entering, but

the basic rhythm is the same, I think.

If you haven’t completed a year, you don’t know what will happen or what you should do.

This is the basic cycle of ordinary work.

Now, in the financial markets, of course there is also a yearly

cycle.

Because, as written above,

almost everyone in the world is operating according to

the solar calendar,

so this is natural.

A year in the solar calendar is

the orbital period of the Earth around the Sun.

Furthermore, in the financial markets, there exist cycles larger than a year as well.

Representative cycles include

approximately 3–5 years, and approximately 5–8 years.

These exist in each market.

In other words, in the financial markets, even after a year

so even after a year, you have not yet experienced everything.

Thinking of my earlier example of work,

you’re still a beginner.

Why do large cycles of 3, 5, or 8 years exist in the financial markets?

Because the stocks we trade

invest in are tied to company earnings changes,

and currencies are investments in countries.

Changes in a company’s earnings,

and changes in a country, are naturally controlled by powerful forces that are

longer and larger,

and thus longer cycles exist.

Even after one year of investing,

there is still nothing started.

After three years of investing,

even if you make a year's profit,

you have barely completed one full rotation.

When you think about it that way,

thinking that five years or ten years is just one rotation is about right.

There are even larger cycles in the market.

If you have watched the market and investors for sixteen years,

you see many investors who make a big profit for one or two years

and then, as if to pretend to understand everything,

disappear soon after.

The market we are in is

such a large wave,

a field that takes a very long time to complete a rotation.

Please remember that and always learn from the market with a beginner’s mindset.

Never forget this, and continue to learn from the market with a beginner’s mindset.