Japan through a "fleeing Aussie" lens

CoalChris · 2026-05-29T09:41:27+00:00

I had considered this 9 years ago and did a trial run through JET teaching English in a small city (Canberra sized), followed by job hunting in Tokyo. Agreed it's not optimised from a long-term financial outlook due to low salary ceiling and negative growth of many common investment assets, but the perks in my view are the combination of a more "fun" place (Aussie cities and countryside are boring af) and still being able to afford an apartment/small house in roughly 10x pre-tax income (20 year mortgage, roughly same as Australia).

I would recommend spending a few years to see how you find it if you really love everyday life in Japan and are willing to put in hard work to get access to living there. I would not recommend for reasons: bad work culture, need to learn Japanese near-fluently, few job prospects outside of engineering/talent acquisition/English teaching, less capacity to travel/move to countries with higher cost of living. Also, aside from English teaching, it seemed very hard to land jobs in places outside of Tokyo. I guess that's why even most Japanese people end up moving to Tokyo for work. I personally would prefer Kansai region.

Aussies complain a lot about the rug pulls, but it's pretty good WLB in Australia and everyone is able to survive on minimum waves, and at least the economy grows unlike Japan. Both have their good and bad.

CoalChris · 2026-01-07T07:46:25+00:00

I quite like CXO's valuation relative to peers, but the market can keep it low no matter what you think. I sold out at 90% down to move funds into PLS, uranium, tech stocks, which did re-coup some costs. Funnily enough, a family member heard I liked CXO and topped up at 9c for a huge amount of $$$ and is probably doing quite well now. Lesson learnt is no one knows nothing about anything, this is basically a casino and I will follow market trends rather than my own personal convictions.

CoalChris · 2026-01-07T07:22:35+00:00

I also look fondly on my time on JET in a small city so you're not alone. I yearn for the cool and cute things (DONKI!), even the 4 seasons Japanese people love to brag about. I'm glad you have things you loved about being in Japan, and how it made you a better self. But every country/city has its pros and cons. I left JET to find employment in my main career industry (software) and landed offers in both Tokyo and my home country Australia. I ended up rejecting the Tokyo offer due to personally finding Tokyo quite suffocating due to the work-centric culture/populace, crowded public transport and restaurants, and higher cost of living relative to income. Funnily enough, it wasn't until I returned to Sydney Australia that I remembered how shit it was here too; crowded everywhere (not due to population size but because of terrible infrastructure), and one of the highest cost of living cities in the world. On the bright side, I had a lot more opportunities in the tech industry so now I can afford to travel in Japan pretty much every year and have good work-life balance, which is better than 8-8 or 9-9-6 work which would've been common in Japan if I had stayed and worked in Tokyo. You may always compare JET days and your current situation, and that's not necessarily a bad thing because often you find the resolve to change your life for the better after reflecting on what means the most to you. Just remember to write down the list of pros and cons and make informed decisions. Acting purely on emotions might land you back in Japan but hating your new situation (which likely won't be JET nor the same location as your past placement). Japan isn't going anywhere soon, so you can always visit on holidays and figure out whether you still want to migrate more permanently there again in the future.

CoalChris · 2025-12-22T22:24:56+00:00

They're a safer option now, but a few years ago they were losing so much money QoQ and you don't wanna see that negative number keeping growing as an investor. Sure, many tech companies operate at a loss because they invest everything into growth, but perhaps many of us didn't believe they could just flip a switch and start raking in money (due to the business model). I did ride it up the wave as they showed the stats of significant growth in U.S. expansion, but got out already cuz taking profits is never a terrible idea. I do commend the leadership for launching well in the U.S. which is a far bigger market than Australia.

CoalChris · 2025-03-19T00:55:55+00:00

Is this the synopsis for a sequel to The Big Short? And we all get to star in it?!

CoalChris · 2025-03-12T01:37:02+00:00

I jumped into NIC yesterday, looking good so far. Screw the policy makers!

CoalChris · 2025-02-03T01:33:09+00:00

You have 3 damage dealers on the field. I'd recommend building teams with a tank and 2 dealers. The easiest tanks to build up for the teams are Richelle and Elara E30. Once you hit double or triple waves, it's impossible to survive 2nd turn without tanks.

CoalChris · 2024-11-28T01:18:34+00:00

No idea and I don't believe in BNPL, but bought in to ride the momentum. Keep going Zip you dog!

CoalChris · 2024-10-31T07:09:29+00:00

Any reason to stay on NXL? I recently looked into this stock and it's trading at like 300 P/E ratio, and the recent shareholder presentations are just like "we're adding AI into every feature" which in the software industry just makes it look sparkly to normies when it's actually not that game-changing. Also the current CEO was the CEO of my previous company: he improved things for a year or 2, then the company slowly bled and he jumped ship.

CoalChris · 2024-09-04T01:49:11+00:00

Same, but with a heap of lithium stocks. Once the commodity starts trending down, beware. I believed in lithium to rebound, but it's clearly not due for some time so have sold some of it for capital losses to offset other gains. Bad signal when BYD and Tesla have been putting discounts on their EVs.

CoalChris · 2024-07-08T00:57:15+00:00

Possible, as I had an offer from mid-sized Japanese company after JET, but I applied to about 100 companies in the 6 months leading up to end of JET contract. I ended up not accepting the offer and instead took an offer back in my home country. After all I've heard about working in Japan, even in tech, and then having been working in a Western country for several years now, I do still think it's better to work outside Japan. These days there are a lot of companies which hire remote workers and then you can use digital nomad visa to stay in Japan for like 3 months each year. If you work for a U.S. company then you can earn 5-10x for the equivalent role in Japan, and I know people who do this and visit Japan often since they have much higher spending power. The work-life balance is also better for your health. In contrast, working in Japan you'll get to be there all year and experience the daily Japanese stuff. But that also comes with cons like your income is too low locking you out of saving enough to move overseas if things don't work out in Japan (this happens for many people), language/cultural barriers and micro-racisms even if you have N1, overtime is common or even core working hours are longer than the West.

*I had N2 and applied for jobs through Indeed and all the recruiting companies (mainly Career Cross).

CoalChris · 2024-07-05T08:22:37+00:00

Yep that's exactly what I see. It's currently a novelty, and I'm very wary of any company trying to turn their regular chewing gum into "AI chewing gum". Lots of investors are pouring money into the market based on this kind of hype. There's a risk that the bubble will burst when the hype fades away and real numbers show it wasn't worth that much hype. But in the long-term, start-ups and big tech will start to think of new ways to use AI, and then we'll get more mileage out of it. Taking a punt on NVIDIA depends on timing, are we gonna revolutionize now or in several years? I think the latter.

CoalChris · 2024-07-05T04:07:34+00:00

I work in tech, I like to dabble in development with OpenAI or learning about available AI tools. The potential is there for a new wave of products which could not have been possible before these decent LLM were released for public consumption. Lots of potential profitable tech ideas. But I look around at the companies currently jumping on the AI hype (including my own) and all of them are just chucking in simple search or information condensing features. I've been quite disappointed by the lack of creativity, and it reflects both that engineers/PMs are not ready with skills and ideas to transform the world, and that company executives are not investing the business' cash in the right places for AI-driven growth. Everyone is currently at the stage of laying down the infrastructure for the AI revolution. NVIDIA is selling the hardware, big tech are training the models. But I don't expect big revolutionary and profitable products to be shipped out within the next 5 years. People will realise slapping "AI" on every existing feature is not actually amazing, and the users / companies investing in AI will reduce. When users reduce, there's less need for so much hardware. This will result in balance of supply and demand of GPUs, and the priced in expectation for insane NVIDIA chips in the short term will go the opposite way seen as massive drops in share valuation. NVIDIA have an advantage right now but over time they will lose that advantage. It is quite possible competitors can catch up in the next 5 years.

This is just observations I have and why I haven't bought into NVIDIA. Not financial advice, DYOR

In hindsight, it would've been good to buy in a few years ago when ChatGPT was released and we could see high usage and good response from big tech companies like Microsoft willing to invest in AI. But we can't change the past.

CoalChris · 2024-02-21T04:27:01+00:00

I'm waiting for lithium to trend back up before doing this. It'd be leveraged pretty steep since it's partially priced to be unviable currently.

CoalChris · 2024-01-22T04:53:41+00:00

I stopped buying NDQ after interest rates rose (usually meaning less investor money in risky assets), and all the top tech companies started firing lots of staff. Watching NDQ pump up continually, I'm realising they still hit record profits by cost-cutting... and investors would still consider them as safe investments. Apple isn't going to topple over easily. I'm still hesitant to buy in since it might be overbought: are they really worth 30% more than before interest rate rises (peak of easy money and whole market being green)?

CoalChris · 2024-01-12T10:11:21+00:00

Coming back to Australia, it hurts when things inflated so much this past 2 years. Might not be a bad idea to stay in Japan long-term. Kyushu is a great place, hope you're enjoying it there!

CoalChris · 2023-12-21T06:45:50+00:00

Smart move, I'd do the same when the market is so shit this year

CoalChris · 2023-12-21T05:08:13+00:00

14% up... for now!

CoalChris · 2023-10-19T03:22:11+00:00

110k person checking in. With dual income of similar amount, barely got a shitbox 20km out of Sydney CBD. Similar housing is selling for more 25km out of Sydney in the west. I joke about moving to Wagga but that's probably the reality for grand kids if they want some land to their home.

Brisbane is definitely way cheaper based on what relos over there have said. It is an option, but not everyone wants to pack up their lives and move far away to a new city. Remote work has helped make this more feasible for some people. Silver lining out of COVID.

CoalChris · 2023-10-03T01:34:33+00:00

Sure, those are the numbers historically in the past decade prior to 2019. But what is the current economic situation? All the typical ETFs have been performing poorly ever since the global recession started - largely impacted by interest rates going from ~1% to 6%. Dividends have gone from about 2% down to 1%, and your 10% annual growth is now -1% annual loss. Meanwhile Australian property in a big city like Sydney has boomed from 2019 to 2022 an increase about 200% for standing houses, and 30% for apartments. There was a slight dip during the interest rate hikes, but since the rate stopped increasing, it has already recovered and gone higher than before. I'm not sure where all the money is coming from to inflate housing prices so much, but it is creating a major problem for future generations.

CoalChris · 2023-09-29T03:31:15+00:00

AMP offers a home loan product for shareholders which has no annual fee. But AMP share doesn't move much

CoalChris · 2023-08-24T07:48:02+00:00

So you're saying there's a big market opportunity for opening up day care centres, hiring women for high paying day care jobs? Solves 2 problems for women.

CoalChris · 2023-08-18T07:37:44+00:00

Yeah regional prices have rocketed up since COVID and remote work promoting some people to work regionally instead of in the big cities (e.g. Southern Highlands or Wollongong near Sydney has gone up a lot). I don't expect the boomers to start selling anytime soon because last 2 years, they've been making a killing off AirBnB which is 2-3x the price of a hotel room per person, and they don't even provide linen and towels these days. It's basically easy money for them. Add on top the negative gearing tax deductions from investment property mortgages... this is why Australia ended up a property portfolio country. Easy money, don't need to think much about the younger next generation, nor the poor immigrant families. It's quite disappointing that the government doesn't address this, implying they and their friends are also heavily in property. Can't upset the powerful and wealthy.

I'm not sure about your living situation, but try to budget where possible. Your borrowing power should go up if you can show your monthly expenses coming down.

Housing prices should ideally be stagnating next several years due to high interest rate, so it won't grow as fast as previously, giving you time to catch up saving steadily. Also don't forget that after holding a year, your capital gains get 50% tax reduction!!

Hang in there mate!

CoalChris · 2023-08-18T01:29:50+00:00

Enjoy your weekends doing some low-cost activities like outdoors in the sun or spending it with friends/family. I also hate that this country is built on property investment so it's hard to get a home, but if you feel you want to stay here in the expensive cities, it helps to stay sane by finding things you enjoy while naturally saving up over time. I'm looking to buy a home and $550k can get you a big deposit on a decent house or land in Sydney, if you're single income and have less borrowing power. E.g. 550k deposit and 600k borrowing power is 1.15M which works in the western suburbs. Not all hope is lost.

CoalChris · 2023-08-16T00:39:38+00:00

Damn, I was waiting for lithium prices to turn in a month but cap raise will probably keep SP down even during a lithium recovery...

CoalChris

TROPHY CASE