Those familiar with investing in the stock market might want to branch out a bit and invest in stocks in other major markets besides those of the US. One of the larger foreign stock markets is the Japanese Stock Market.
Investing in this stock market is much like investing in stocks in the US. The first thing you want to do when considering investing in the Japanese Stock Market is to get familiar with the three most common indexes in the Tokyo Stock Exchange. These are the Nikkei 225, TOPIX and J30.
Before you actually make any trades on the Japanese Stock Market, you should be sure to practice your due diligence in researching any companies you are considering investing in, just like you would if you were purchasing stocks from the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. This will be more difficult, and you might not have easy access to the financial statements for Japanese companies, but you need to do the best that you can to find out as much as you can about these companies to see whether or not you think they will make good investments. The Tokyo Stock Exchange does have an English language website that you can check out to find out a bit more about these companies. You might also want to speak with an advisor who is familiar with the Japanese Stock Market and can advise you on which stocks it might be good to invest in and which would be more risky.
In order to actually make trades, you will need to go through a licensed member of the Tokyo Stock Exchange. In order to do this, you should open an account with a large brokerage company that has reliable contacts with members of this exchange. Once you decide on the trades that you want to make, you pass the information on to your broker, who will then contact the someone at the Tokyo Stock Exchange to actually make the trade. Due to the time this process takes, you might end up paying or receiving a different amount than that which you had originally planned on.
As is true when investing in stocks in the US, when you invest in the Japanese Stock Market [http://www.onstocktrading.com] you should only use money that you can afford to lose, and you want to be sure not to invest everything in one place. Diversification means you will be less likely to lose everything and more likely to actually earn some money.
