Hello. I’m kaizawa97, a member of the first cohort of the N High School Investment Club.

In this article I give a rough overview of the club from the perspective of someone who belonged to it.

All of the information here is from the 2019 academic year.
For current details, please contact the N High School Investment Club directly.

I have not seen any other club member write a blog about what the activities are actually like, so I hope this is useful.

About the Investment Club

If you are interested in the club, please see the links below.
Official site: https://nnn.ed.jp/about/club/investment/
Official Twitter: https://twitter.com/N_investors

Applications and selection

The call for applications arrived by email on 2019/5/22. For the selection, we read What I Want to Tell You Now About Money by Yoshiaki Murakami and wrote a report with our impressions of it and our motivation for joining the club.
The results were announced five days after the deadline.

As for the competition rate, according to ITMedia — What Yoshiaki Murakami wants to convey through financial education, 50 people were selected out of 270 applicants.

The actual investment period

We opened bank and brokerage accounts, went over prohibited conduct such as insider trading, and took classes on statistics. I started actually investing about two months after the results were announced, around July.
The notice that the investment period was over and that the funds were to be donated back to the Murakami Foundation came at the end of February.

Details of the investment

  • Reporting to the Murakami Foundation:
    Over seven months we visited companies, contacted IR departments, studied for the Statistics Certificate and so on, and wrote weekly reports, monthly reports and reports to Mr. Murakami covering these activities.

  1. On the application documents:
    There is no set passing standard for the document screening, so it is hard to prepare for, and in 2019 the notion of a “good” or “bad” application did not really exist. There are many things to fill in, such as self-promotion and your reasons for applying, and I think it is easier to write if you have decided on a dream for the future. Something like wanting to be very rich, wanting to be a gamer, or wanting to be a pastry chef. It helps to think about the people reviewing it (the Murakami Foundation and the club organizers) and what they would find acceptable or interesting. There is no single best answer such as writing “I want to be an investor.”
    If you watched the NHK program (Yoshiaki Murakami — Continuing to Ask “What Is Money?"), you will have seen his lectures and interviews; what matters is expressing your passion in words. I don’t think track record is expected of high school students. If there is one key point about the application, I think it is connecting that dream for the future to investing.

  2. On investing itself:
    Investing broadens your perspective in many ways. And you come to feel how difficult it is to make a profit. Mr. Murakami mentions expected value in every lecture. Once you think about expected value and then actually invest, you can check whether the expected value you calculated yourself turns out to be right or wrong. That check is very interesting.
    On the other hand, all sorts of things happen: you have to set aside time to gather the information investing requires, and you experience how mentally hard it is when a stock price falls. Take care of your mental health.

  3. On company visits and IR activities:
    The company visits were extremely interesting. It felt like a factory tour, but for offices.
    I think being a high school student is what let me get into so many places, so please go if you can. Talking with people at companies and spending time thinking about a company’s future was a real pleasure.
    I went to large companies and small and medium-sized companies on my own, told their IR departments what I had noticed through investing, and encouraged improvements to how the companies were run. I don’t know what effect those visits and IR contacts had, but I may now understand a little of how an activist shareholder feels.

  4. On the reports:
    Regarding the reports, I hear that things are strict, since you are receiving funds: if you don’t submit them the organizers contact you, and you can be removed from the club. Do your best.

  5. On Mr. Murakami’s lectures:
    Mr. Murakami’s lectures are interesting. Archives of the lectures remain on N Prep School, so if you have time to watch them, I think it is a good idea to write your impressions of a lecture in your application. Hardly anyone does it because it is a hassle, so it should improve your chances.

  6. On returning the funds:
    When the club’s activities end, donate the principal back to the Murakami Foundation. If you ended up below the principal, return at least what is left. If some students don’t return the funds, the anger of those who find it unfair boils over. It leads to fights, so please don’t.

Finally

The organizers give a lot of support to members who take the initiative.
By all means, open the door to investing.
Le pessimisme est d’humeur; l’optimisme est de volonté.

If you have any questions, please send me a DM on Twitter.
Good luck to everyone applying to the Investment Club!

That’s all.