"Isn't it possible that you haven't been looking at the monthly chart?" a column currently published on Toyo Keizai ONLINE

Good morning, this is Matsushita.

The Nikkei average is also rising slightly today,

and the strong market continues, doesn’t it?

As the year is ending soon,

this year had a long period of consolidation in the middle,

a year when frustrations accumulated,

but looking back, it seems we’ll end up at the same price level as at the end of last year.

If you had kept buying steadily,

the amount you cut losses would have avoided wasted moves

and saved you trouble.

If you had held on quietly, your assets would have remained as they were.

This weekend, 12/11 (Sun), is the year’s final

lesson of Makoto Investment School, but

I always tell my students,

“Look at the monthly chart.”

When I say this,

they ask,

“Do you look at the monthly chart?”

and they say, “I don’t look at the monthly chart at all,”

which really surprises me.

Surely you don’t mean you don’t look at the monthly chart, right?

I’ll say it once more.

“Look at the monthly chart.”

Then you can see the bigger trend.

On the monthly chart, you can see the large swings of that market or that stock.

We, within those big swings, daily move to either profit or incur losses,

going this way and that.

When you look at the monthly chart,

you realize,

“There are movements this large.”

“This is how it moves.”

Even if looking at the monthly chart doesn’t immediately guide daily trading decisions,

that’s okay.

If you develop the habit of seeing the big trend,

you will be less swayed by small day-to-day price moves.

You will be able to look at the market a bit more calmly.

That is where investment truly begins.

When you can view the market calmly,

by looking at the monthly chart you will gradually notice major opportunities.

Because the market is filled with investors who do not look at the monthly chart,

If you simply start regularly looking at the monthly chart,

you will break free from being a “mass-market investor.”

This is also an important first step to profits.

As a major takeaway from the big learning of 2016,

let’s start looking at the monthly chart.

Looking is easy, after all. (laughs)