Monthly Financial Snapshot: January 2022

Not too much to report on for this month.

Investment-wise, the US market seems to be close to entering a correction (10% decrease) for the year, which isn’t too suprising given the almost unabated rapid growth we’ve had in the last several years. By contrast, my own investments have declined by less than half that in the same period, due to my more conservative and diversified investment strategy. As a result, I’m not really worried about the markets at this point. However, I am a bit concerned about the dollar-yen exchange rate. Since the beginning of last year, the yen has been gradually falling against the dollar, and it is now at a five-year low and still declining. This impacts me because I am paid in yen, but am forced to invest in dollars (thanks to FATCA). To make matters worse, we are starting to see the beginnings of inflation in Japan, with many companies announcing price increases going into effect in the coming months. Japan has gone the last 30 years or so with negligible inflation, so it will be interesting to see how price increases play out for the macro economy. My gut feeling is that most companies will make relatively small price increases (“if we raise our prices too much, our customers can’t afford our products!”) but won’t increase salaries (“we can’t afford to with all this inflation!”). As a result, consumers will cut spending, and Japan will likely enter a recession (again). But who knows? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Projected time to FI (assuming 6% growth and 4% withdrawal rate): 12 years, 5 months.