Tokyo Housewives Trade Yen as Japan Spurs Inflation: Currencies
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Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda’s success in stoking inflation is changing the way 63-year-old Tokyo housewife Ritsuko Ueda manages her savings.
Ueda is one of thousands of ordinary Japanese trying to protect the value of their capital by resorting to currency margin trading, a high-risk way of dealing foreign exchange that uses borrowed money. Individual investors held 767,902 accounts for speculating on currencies in February, the most since July 2005 and up from 595,698 a year earlier, according to Tokyo Financial Exchange Inc.