Here's why Japan boasts the world's most powerful force of retail traders

About 85 per cent of traders are men, mostly in their 30s, 40s and 50s, according to estimates from Gaitame

Popular tales of “Mrs Watanabe” -- the canny Tokyo housewife who dabbles in currency trading in between school runs and shopping -- barely begin to tell the story of Japan’s retail traders in the foreign exchange market.

With almost 800,000 active forex accounts, Japan boasts the world’s most powerful force of retail traders. It has doubled in size in little more than a decade and spurred some of the most dramatic price moves of recent times, including the January “flash crash” that hammered the dollar and sent the yen soaring.

Contrary to the enchanting notion of “Mrs Watanabe,” most of the traders