and it involves a group of investors that we probably don't give enough scrutiny to.

This is retail Japanese investors of a very high level of sophistication.

This is not Mrs. Watanabe trying or looking for ways to conservatively invest the family savings,

this is a group of very sophisticated investors who spot lots of little opportunities.

The one that they spotted today is that if you bought shares in ANA holdings,

whose shares traded on volumes that were twice the 365 day moving average,

you qualify for a special freebie that goes to loyal investors,

and is one of many gifts that are handed out to shareholders of Japanese companies.

This particular coupon is extremely popular, it gets you 50% off a domestic ANA flight.

But, the point is it's so popular that there's a secondary market for those coupons,

and we could go out from the FT's office here in Tokyo and buy one down the street for 4,700 yen.

Now the calculation is that if you buy a sufficient number of shares to qualify for that, about... that's 1,000 shares, so about 329,000 yen,

and then flip the shares over, sell them in a couple of days, but you still qualify for that coupon, which you then sell.

Once you subtract the commission, and some people are also playing on the... in the short market to make sure that they're not getting a big price risk in there,

less that, and you're still making 1%.

Now these are difficult times, um, and that 1% is extremely attractive to this particular breed of investor.

But look at what else that investor is doing.

The main board of the Tokyo stock exchange is represented by the Nikkei 225 average.

That's down about 10% this year, it's not been a good year,

there's a lot of nervousness, and there's a lot of foreigners who've been selling out of Japan, big global funds.

The Mothers' Index, which is a small index of startup companies, Japanese startup companies,

on a side board of the main boards.

That's up nearly 11% since the beginning of the year, and it's all those same investors.

So what you have to do is look at that ANA wheeze, think about how they, the lengths they'll go to to make that kind of small return,

and then look at the way that they're playing that particular market.

And you have to ask yourself, is that not the smart money?