I never thought I could catch an AI: The phantom story of 'AI and Debt' picked up by note money
If you write 'future,' people believe it; if you write 'AI,' it goes viral.
But what happens when the content is actually 'debt'!?
I analyzed the reason why note money picked it up, from the other side.
Last night, my article 'Dressing up a phantom, debt became AI—the end of the road for investors who believed' was picked up by note money. This is a major achievement for me, as it is the first time I have been selected for anything while operating under the pen name 'Rintaro Takechi,' despite being someone who could pass as a professional international investment and economic commentator using my real name.
Furthermore, even though I did not explicitly mention 'SoftBank' or 'SBG' in the title, I suspect that note's AI verified the content of my article and decided to pick it up, judging that 'this is an article worth reading.'
Normally, I would want to complain, saying 'Hey note AI, don't you go training on my work without permission! Damn it!', but since it picked me up, I, Rintaro Takechi, a creature of emotion, will flip my stance and praise it, saying 'note AI, you're amazing!'.
The story of the 'voting machine and weighing machine' that Buffett also quoted
I received a comment from K. saying, 'The stock market is a voting machine in the short run and a weighing machine in the long run.' As you can immediately tell by reading K.'s note, he is someone who learns the basics of investment thoroughly and outputs from his own perspective, and both his articles and comments are extremely accurate.
This famous quote is by Benjamin Graham, who was Warren Buffett's mentor and is also known as the 'father of value investing'. The original source is in his masterpiece, 'The Intelligent Investor.'
One of the reasons this quote became famous is that Buffett has quoted this phrase many times. Therefore, it is often introduced as 'Buffett's words.'
Why is this quote perfect for SBG?
The meaning of this maxim is obvious once it is pointed out.
Short-term voting machine: The market moves based on emotions, topics, and crowd psychology
Long-term weighing machine: Intrinsic corporate value is ultimately evaluated
In other words, there is no more appropriate phrase as a warning to 'individual investors who jumped on SBG's acquisition of Graphcore.'
This 'state where the popularity contest is overheating and the market mechanism is malfunctioning' is the true nature of the 'Mrs. Watanabe phenomenon' that I explained in the article.
What was the Mrs. Watanabe phenomenon?
This 'Mrs. Watanabe phenomenon' is a phenomenon where professional traders once wondered, 'Why on earth is such ridiculous speculation succeeding!?', and when they tracked the reality, the fact emerged that individual investors, mainly Japanese housewives, were borrowing money to leverage FX with the same mindset as playing pachinko.
In other words, Mrs. Watanabes were not 'investing' but were in a state close to 'speculation addiction,' ignoring rationality and analysis, and were just enthusiastic about gambling with the mindset of 'buying because it looks like it will go up.' I cannot help but feel a similar atmosphere in the recent rise in SBG's stock price.
Masayoshi Son's timing and 'underhanded staging'
The recent acquisition of Graphcore by SBG was announced at the perfect timing of Thursday, March 20, 2025. This is because it was the Vernal Equinox Day, and the Japanese stock market was closed. In other words, even if there was a negative reaction in the US ADR (SBG's American Depositary Receipts) market, there was enough time to 'adjust the atmosphere' through verbal intervention before the start of the week.
In fact, professional investors in the U.S. focused on the seven risks I explained in my article, and SBG's ADR fell. Even so, the Japanese market reacted with a 'buy'...
Normally, when the Japanese market opened on Friday, March 21, the normal market reaction would have been for SBG's stock price to plummet following the ADR decline. However, the opposite happened in reality.
SBG's stock price began to rise from the morning. And over the weekend, Japanese media outlets receiving advertising revenue from SoftBank began to praise 'Future AI Champion Masayoshi Son'.
What is the structure of Mrs. Watanabe hunting and loss-cutting?
What is prone to happen under these circumstances is what is known as 'Mrs. Watanabe hunting'. This term refers to a structural phenomenon where Japanese individual investors engaged in leveraged trading in currency and stock markets are targeted by professional speculators, inducing them to cut their losses (= loss-cut).
For example, when many individual investors hold positions at a certain level, market professionals target that as a 'harvesting line' and intentionally drive the price down to that point. Then, as loss-cuts are triggered all at once, the price plummets further, and professionals profit by riding that trend. This is the typical composition of a 'hunt'.
This time, it is also the timing when the psychology of individual speculators is most relaxed, right after the stock price buzzed with 'AI' and 'dreams' due to SBG's acquisition of Graphcore.
・ 'I believe it will still go up'
・ 'The media is also praising it, so it should be fine'
・ 'Even if it goes down, it should return soon'
This psychological state, where 'only the reason for buying remains in memory, and the reason for selling becomes invisible,' is the soil that makes Mrs. Watanabe hunting possible.
'When you feel like you've won' is the most dangerous time
After a stock price jumps solely due to the flashiness of the material, like the Graphcore acquisition, you need to be especially careful. This is because 'individual investors who feel like they have won' are the most likely to let their guard down and get caught in a loss-cut.
I would like to dare to say this to those who are entering for the short term speculatively.
'Wouldn't it be better to get out while you're making a profit?'
Taking profits is not a betrayal, but a survival strategy. The moment when you have jumped on SBG stock and the atmosphere around you starts to drift with 'I made a profit!' is the most dangerous timing.
Next preview: Hooking dreams and harvesting with loss-cuts—Exposing the 'professional script'
Next time, we will look back at representative cases of actual 'hooking -> loss-cut hunting' and delve into the eerie commonalities between this SBG Graphcore acquisition turmoil and the 'Mrs. Watanabe phenomenon'.
・ Loss-cuts are 'engineered' to be triggered
・ Why do professionals go out of their way to spread dreams like 'AI' and 'the future'?
・ Why is it that only Mrs. Watanabe is placed on the 'hunted side' every time?
Investing is an information war and a psychological war. Professionals know from the start the 'loss-cut timing' of those who jumped in believing in illusions. Can you see through such an 'engineered market script'? To ensure you buy with dreams but don't cry in reality, I will thoroughly dissect this structure.
Rintaro Takechi
