Takashi Kotegawa Biography, Age, Height, Career, Net Worth In 2025

Takashi Kotegawa (aka BNF and called the “J‑Com man”) is one of Japan's popular day traders. He was born on March 5, 1978, in Ichikawa, Chiba and created a trading empire, growing from a nominal $13,600 initial account to approximately $153 million in eight years.

He first gained international notoriety through a single massive trade in 2005. A trader at Mizuho Securities made a big fat-finger error, selling 610,000 J‑Com shares for ¥1 instead of selling one share for ¥610,000. BNF took this chance and bought about 7,100 discounted shares. He sold some part of them for quick profit and kept the rest overnight, apparently profiting over $17 million from that trade alone.


BNF is known for his disciplined and humble approach; despite having made millions, he stayed with the same shopping habits, reportedly spending extravagantly only on a new high-floor apartment that cost about ¥400 million (~$2.7 million). Overall, he lived a simple life of day trading.

Kotegawa's approach is primarily scalping and swing trading, capitalising on short-term price reversals in volatile markets. He primarily used technical indicators such as Bollinger Bands, RSI, and the 25-day moving average to look for stocks around 20% below the 25-day MA and then simply rode the bounce.

After he received his J‑Com payout, Kotegawa's wealth began to increase steadily, from $13,600 after 2 years to $17,000,000, then increased to around $153,000,000 by 2008.

Kotegawa seems to have maintained his grounded demeanour and shares little with the media, including his trading approach. He indicates that he has never been in a long position, typically only holding trades for days as short-term trades.

Takeaways:

📈 Radical Wealth: Grew $13.6 K to $153 M in about 8 years

💡 Legendary Trade: Took advantage of Mizuho's blindness of a J‑Com pricing error for about $17 M.

🔍 Targeted Strategy: He uses technical setups and executes with discipline, while also focusing towards short-term price reversals.

🌱 Simple Lifestyle: Simple lifestyle, no lavish spending.

🧠 In the Dark: Shares very little publicly on methods - his success owes to nothing more than discipline, market knowledge, and temperamental control.

Kotegawa's story is a compelling example of how a disciplined, strategic method of day trading can produce great results, albeit with considerable risk as well as time.