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February 26, 2026
The Takashi Kotegawa strategy turned roughly $15,000 into $150 million over eight years, making it one of the most studied approaches in trading history. Kotegawa, known online as BNF (Buy N’ Forget), operated from a small Tokyo apartment with no formal finance education and no Wall Street connections. His BNF trading method relied entirely on technical analysis strategy, stock market psychology, and trading discipline techniques sharp enough to profit during Japan’s worst market panics.
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Inside the Takashi Kotegawa Strategy and BNF Trading Method Explained
The Core of the Takashi Kotegawa Strategy
Kotegawa ignored earnings reports and corporate news completely. His technical analysis strategy was built around three tools: Bollinger Bands, RSI, and a 25-day moving average. He bought stocks that had fallen at least 20% below that moving average, not because companies were broken, but because fear had driven prices too low. When RSI confirmed oversold conditions and a reversal candle appeared, he entered. Losers were cut the same day. Winners were sometimes held overnight.
He monitored 600 to 700 stocks daily while keeping 30 to 70 open positions. He ate instant noodles, skipped social events, and avoided everything that pulled attention away from the screen. That also was part of the trading discipline techniques that separated him from everyone else.
The Trades That Defined Him
In 2005, a Mizuho Securities trader accidentally placed an order to sell 610,000 shares of J-Com Holdings at 1 yen instead of 1 share at 610,000 yen. The stock collapsed. Kotegawa bought 7,100 shares near the bottom and made roughly $17 million in a single day.
A year later, the Livedoor scandal triggered a market-wide selloff. Kotegawa recognized that solid stocks were being punished purely out of panic and started buying. When the market stabilized, his portfolio had surged.
Kotegawa had this to say about his approach to stock market psychology:
“When people are scared to buy, I buy. When people feel safe, I sell.”
Why Emotional Control Was Central to the Takashi Kotegawa Strategy
Kotegawa stated:
“If you focus too much on money, you cannot be successful.”
He treated every trade the same way, whether it won or lost. No revenge trades, no celebrations, no deviations from the BNF trading method. He also said:
“If I get too happy or too sad, I stop trading. That means I’ve lost control.”
His only major purchase was a $100 million commercial building in Akihabara, treated as a portfolio move, not a status symbol. He never launched a fund or sold trading courses, and he remains largely anonymous to this day. That silence, and also that discipline, was always the edge.
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