Credit crunch batters Japanese housewives

by merrie | September 17, 2007 at 10:35 pm | 192 views | add comment

The $US2.5 billion that
Japanese individuals lost last month was just a minuscule fraction
of the nation's overall household savings, say some analysts.

"It's comparable to what Japan spends in two weeks on horse
racing, lotteries and pachinko," said Tohru Sasaki, chief foreign
exchange strategist at JPMorgan Chase Bank.
Ms Itoh, said she would
probably invest her remaining $1,000 in savings.

"There's no other way to make money so quickly," she said.

Indeed, most of the half dozen homemaker-traders interviewed for
this article said they were already trading again, and the rest
said they soon would be.

Tens of thousands of married Japanese women ventured into online currency trading in the last year and a half, playing the markets between household chores or after tucking the children into bed. While the overwhelmingly male world of traders and investors here mocked them as kimono-clad Mrs Watanabes, these women collectively emerged as a powerful force, using Japan's vast wealth to sway prices and confound economists.

"Until the credit crisis, which began with troubles in the
American mortgage market, the value of foreign currencies traded
online by private Japanese citizens, including women, averaged $9.1
billion a day, almost a fifth of all foreign exchange trading
worldwide during trading hours in Tokyo," said Kazuhiro Shirakura,
an analyst at the Yano Research Institute in Tokyo.