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The story
According to the Bank of Japan’s flow of funds statistics for April–June 2026, household financial assets reached a record ¥2,519 trillion at the end of June, up 11.0% from a year earlier. Stocks and other equities jumped 47.0% to ¥486 trillion and investment trusts climbed 36.8% to ¥193 trillion, with rising share prices driving the increase. On 5ch, opinions clashed: some argued that only households holding stocks and investment trusts benefit, widening the gap with those who rely solely on wage income, while others pointed out that most of these assets are elderly savings that won’t flow into consumption as-is. The thread was split on whether asset growth driven by higher stock prices can really be called a tangible economic recovery.
According to the Bank of Japan’s preliminary flow of funds statistics for April–June, released on the 17th, household financial assets reached a record ¥2,519 trillion at the end of June, up 11.0% from a year earlier. Rising stock prices pushed up the balance.
Within household financial assets, stocks and other equities rose 47.0% to ¥486 trillion, while investment trusts rose 36.8% to ¥193 trillion.
Amid rising interest rates, purchases of retail government bonds increased, pushing debt securities up 15.5% to ¥38 trillion.
Source: 47news.jp / Original article here
What people said
A huge number of people have seen their assets grow, but they're not spending it, so personal consumption just keeps cooling off.
The economy won't turn unless people actually spend money.
Most of this is elderly people's savings, so it never gets spent.
Letting the elderly population balloon is exactly why Japan is declining.
Stocks and investment trusts generate hefty income gains (dividends) and capital gains (from selling), so that money does flow into big-ticket spending.
The real problem is the widening gap with people who have only wage income and can't touch financial assets!
Now it's crystal clear who's actually cooling the economy down and who's dead weight on the nation.
And so, onward to communism.
From an individual's point of view, they are spending in a sense — they're buying financial products, after all.
No, people ARE spending the money — it's just going toward things like Apple's new iPhone, or donations like the one made to Hyogo Prefecture.
Anonymous donor gives Hyogo Prefecture gold bullion worth roughly ¥800 million — Governor Saito: "I offer my deepest respect for this tremendous generosity" [Nitamago★, a poster who often relays breaking news]
https://asahi.5ch.io/test/read.cgi/newsplus/1789546161/
"We really want it used for the hospital…" The Takarazuka couple behind the famous ¥25.4 billion donation reveal to us alone their passionate hopes for rebuilding the hospital
https://gendai.media/articles/-/147012
Right, that's why pouring money lavishly into construction is the correct move — people at the bottom don't hold onto money overnight (an old Edo-era saying about spending cash as soon as you get it), so it keeps the economy moving.
Back around 2000 it was supposedly only ¥1,400 trillion.
Savings among people in their 50s: average ¥19.08 million, median ¥7 million | 18.2% hold no financial assets while 18.8% have over ¥30 million
https://news.yahoo.co.jp/articles/a5553565bc49867a046147918d0e425f861c9d21
Re: #7
Well, there's some yen-weakness bloat in there too (people holding foreign-currency deposits or foreign stocks look richer once converted into yen).
Convert it to dollars and it's only grown about 1.25x in 25 years.
That's an economy you can only call stagnant.
The yen's value has cratered so much that it hasn't really grown as much as the headline number suggests.
They can't eat much, don't have the stamina to travel, and stop even bothering with their appearance.
Exactly why it'd be better not to let the elderly ratio keep climbing.
raising interest rates benefits most citizens.
Only people with certain variable-rate loans come out worse off.
What benefit is that supposed to be, exactly (lol)
Someone with ¥1 million in savings earning 5% interest gets ¥50,000 a year — that's just pocket money.
But someone with ¥100 million in savings gets a near risk-free ¥5 million a year in passive income, about an average annual salary.
And with ¥2 billion in savings, that's risk-free passive income of ¥100 million a year (after tax, that's actually more than 1.5x what someone earning a ¥100 million salary takes home).
Can you really call that a benefit for "most citizens"?
Well, or they could just cut elderly welfare spending instead.
What happens when the stock bubble bursts?
The AI bubble's about to end anyway.
AI isn't a bubble, so it's not going to end.
Convert it to cash — that way you win in the end.
But lose those weird line breaks and blank spaces, they're creepy.
The state piled up debt and slapped heavy taxes on workers, all just to keep inflating the elderly ratio and elderly savings — the biggest fools in the world.
That's why Japan's decline is so brutal.
The only option left is social security reform: cutting elderly medical care, nursing care, and other welfare spending.
The people who can actually move politicians are the ones holding financial assets lol
Kind of sad, isn't it lol
"Elderly savings" — whose savings are we even talking about?
Most of it is parked in U.S. assets and never comes back to Japanese people.
It's basically just being used as the name on the debt to begin with.
The more you cut social security, the bigger the retirement-savings quota gets dumped on the working generation.
Even now, young people in their 20s are giving up on marriage and pinching pennies just to keep funding NISA and iDeCo accounts (Japan's tax-advantaged investing and pension-savings schemes) — people are even calling it "NISA poverty."
Most personal financial assets are elderly people's savings.
That's exactly why Japan's economy can't turn upward.
No idea what's wrong on your end, but the economy is doing great.
Of course that's what happens when you cut social security and turn retirement into "everyone's on their own."
It used to be the "¥20 million retirement shortfall" problem, but with inflation and further social security cuts going forward, there's no telling how many tens of millions of yen short people will end up.
¥30 million, ¥50 million, ¥100 million by retirement —
no matter how much you stockpile, there's no end to it.
Background and Key Points of This Debate
The Bank of Japan’s flow of funds statistics tally the financial assets and liabilities of households, businesses, government, and other sectors every quarter, and this quarter’s ¥2,519 trillion is a new record. Looking at the breakdown, though, stocks and investment trusts alone rose roughly 40% year-on-year, meaning most of the growth reflects valuation gains from higher share prices rather than fresh saving. Japanese households still keep a large share of their assets in cash and deposits, so gains like these tend to be concentrated among people who actually hold stocks or investment trusts, making them hard to feel for households living on wage income alone. It’s also easy to overlook that in a weak-yen environment, the yen value of foreign-currency assets balloons too, so a statistical increase doesn’t necessarily mean real purchasing power has risen. The fact that financial assets are concentrated among the elderly and don’t easily flow into consumption is a point that’s been raised before, and it was exactly where opinion split in this thread as well.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (News Express+) thread “[Household Financial Assets] Record High — ¥2,519 Trillion on Higher Stock Prices.”
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