Beginner Investing

If you have just arrived in Japan — or have lived here for years but never gotten around to investing — the first question is always the same: which account should I open first? Japan offers three main account types for retail investors: the tax-advantaged NISA, the pension-focused iDeCo, and a plain taxable brokerage account. Each serves a different purpose, and picking the wrong one first can cost you years of compound growth or lock away money you actually need. ...

This article contains affiliate links. Beginner Investing Guide 2026: Everything You Need to Start The most common investing mistake isn’t picking the wrong stock. It’s waiting too long to start. Every year you delay investing is a year of compound growth you’ll never get back. A 25-year-old who invests $200/month until age 65 at a 7% average annual return ends up with approximately $525,000. A 35-year-old doing the exact same thing ends up with about $243,000 — less than half, despite only a 10-year difference. ...