sure they are, but as you can see from the chart, there is hardly any significant flow from retail (I assume they are lumped together as "Others" if even counted), and secondly, the transaction amounts are a drop on a hot stone relative to the total savings in Japan. Also consider the flows of foreigners in and out of Japan. Admittedly this year has seen a lot of outflow from Japan into Int'l markets or a repatriation of foreign investments in Japan back to Europe/US. I hear that most international fund managers have given up on Abenomics.
If you were able to travel the world, you might understand better the cultural changes of Japan to many other countries of the world, so why wouldn't it's currency be different. I have always found trading Japanese Yen long term to be best for larger profits of all the currencies, it is a little trickier to day trade but doable one you learn how to trade it, so am thinking you not learned how to adapt, and good traders have to learn this segment. It be like comparing ES to trading Crude Oil. Market are often traded by emotions of people, so you might be from Western civilization whereas Japan s Orient has totally more of being more of honor than many other countries. If you want to have some fun, try trading the Dax, I have always found this market the toughest of the Indexes.
To be sure, I was responding to your most recent post, so I wasn't specifically talking about retail flows. Lifers, as well as the Japanese megabanks, are also custodians for Japanese household and corporate savings, which means that their flows do count. As to whether it's meaningful, these flows are reasonably large, especially if they persist. For instance, using the most recent data, the 2016 YTD (to the end of August) cumulative total outward USD-denominated portfolio investment was arnd ¥21.4trn. It was ¥21.2trn for all of 2015, ¥3.3trn for 2014 and -¥9.2trn for 2013. I'd say these are relatively meaningful numbers, for a whole lot of contexts.
Agree with everything you said though I am not updated on your cited numbers. Any flow counts of course as long as it is meaningful in magnitude. My only point was that according to the information I have at hand households contribute hardly anything to speculative flow in and out of currencies. Banks in Japan are to my knowledge not allowed to offer speculative trading by retail. All that flow has to go through registered brokers. And the volume those brokers are reporting have broken down after the financial crisis and hence I don't believe housewives and for that matter any Japanese retail speculators contribute much at all to currency trading in yen denominated crosses.
Yes, you could very well be 100% correct and the landscape may have changed drastically for the retail punters...
Best thing about Japan....is the beer vending machines on the streets. Try parallel parking sh*t-faced in heavy traffic... on the wrong side of the street.... just to grab one of those giant cans of Asahi with the plastic screw on dragon head. Now that takes American skill.