From 20 million in unrealized losses to 300 million in assets! What is the new index of high-dividend stocks, the “Margin Index,” which “billionaires” who made a big turnaround have arrived at?

It’s already March 2026. Since many Japanese companies close their fiscal year at the end of March, targeting dividends and shareholder perks is an effective stock investment strategy during this period.

However, following the dissolution of the lower house election in January and the ruling Liberal Democratic Party’s landslide victory, the so-called “Takaichi trade” has continued. The Nikkei Stock Average temporarily rose to 57,650.54 yen, entering a phase where 60,000 yen is in sight. As overall Japanese stock levels have risen, aiming for dividends and perks has become less straightforward than before.

So, we asked Pelican, a master of dividend stock investing with total assets exceeding 300 million yen and annual dividends of 7.51 million yen in 2025, how to find stocks that can continue to deliver stable high dividends.

[Profile: Pelican]

He began stock investing in the late 1990s, shortly after starting his career. After surviving numerous historic market crashes, he quit his job in 2019 to become a full-time investor living off stock dividends. His annual dividend income in 2025 was 7.51 million yen, and he expects to receive 8.5 million yen in 2026. His current total assets exceed 300 million yen. He is the author of “Hajimete no High Dividend Stocks,” and plans to publish a second book in March featuring the latest screening techniques utilizing AI. He has 48,000 followers on X (@Pelican_Blog), and his blog is also well received.

From 2.5 million to 50 million! Huge success with IT stocks

First, let’s look back at Pelican’s path to becoming a centi-millionaire and achieving FIRE (financial independence).

The origin of his investing journey was a foreign currency deposit in U.S. dollars in his early twenties. Attracted by high U.S. interest rates, he deposited money and ended up gaining capital gains due to the yen’s depreciation.

“It only increased from about 100,000 yen to around 110,000 yen, but that’s when I became fascinated with the price movements of financial products. That’s what made me want to start investing in stocks,” he says.

At the time, in the late 1990s, there were no online brokerage firms in Japan. When he started investing, he simply bought and sold stocks recommended by securities companies and didn’t choose stocks himself. Then in 1999, when the U.S. online brokerage E*TRADE Securities (now SBI Securities) entered Japan, he immediately opened an account. He was then able to apply for the IPO of SoftBank Technology—and won the allocation.

“I think I bought it for about 2.5 million yen, but within less than a week after listing, it skyrocketed to 40 to 50 million yen. Looking back, it was crazy, but the IT bubble had already started, and I was completely riding the wave. That’s when I thought, ‘Stocks are amazing!’ and got deeply hooked.”

Hit directly by Lehman, unrealized losses exceeded 20 million yen

After his big success with SoftBank Technology stock, Pelican invested in popular IT bubble stocks such as Hikari Tsushin, and his stock assets approached 100 million yen. However, those paper gains quickly shrank to just a few million yen with the collapse of the IT bubble.

“It was a shock, but at the same time, I kind of felt, ‘I knew it.’ It was almost like resignation, thinking this was inevitable. Even though it was stock investing, somewhere it felt like gambling. It wasn’t money I had earned through work, so I thought it couldn’t be helped if the gains disappeared.”

But the real trial came afterward. Even after the IT bubble burst, his investment style didn’t change much, and by around 2008, he mainly engaged in short-term trading.

“At the time, Nintendo’s stock price was around 60,000 yen, about 6 million yen per lot. Even small movements could earn about 10,000 yen, so I kept repeating day-trading-like transactions. Then the Lehman Shock hit.”

Like many other stocks, Nintendo shares plummeted dramatically, falling from around 60,000 yen to the 7,000–8,000 yen range. During that time, he averaged down nine times. Averaging down means buying additional shares as the price falls to lower the average purchase price. As a result, he held 1,000 shares with an average cost of 23,000 yen, but his unrealized losses swelled to over 20 million yen at their peak.

“It was a complete failure of averaging down. I stopped stock investing for a while and focused on my job, pretending not to see the losses. Fortunately, I was busy with work (laughs).”

A losing stock becomes a treasure? A dramatic turnaround with dividends

While his Nintendo shares remained frozen for one or two years, he noticed something: the appeal of dividends.

“With 1,000 shares, the annual dividends came to several hundred thousand yen. Back then, dividend payments were sent like checks, which you exchanged for cash at the post office. Sometimes it was over 300,000 yen, and I thought, ‘This is nice.’

Even if you have unrealized losses, there’s no actual loss unless you sell. I started thinking that if I could keep receiving dividends, eventually the losses might disappear.”

From that point on, his investment strategy changed drastically.

“I shifted my mindset from chasing capital gains to focusing on dividends. Until then, I had done short-term trading and realized I lacked trading talent. So I concluded it was better to invest in stocks with strong dividends and shareholder perks and hold them long-term. That’s when I started paying attention to dividend yields and shareholder benefits.”

The lifeline of high-dividend stocks is continuity

This strategy of long-term holding of high dividend + perks stocks also aligned well with the NISA (tax-exempt small investment system) introduced in 2014. As long as stocks are held in a NISA account, dividends are tax-free. Frequent trading quickly exhausts the investment limit, but simply holding stocks allows the investment limit to expand each year.

He invested in well-known companies such as megabanks like Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, regional banks, and general trading companies, steadily accumulating shares. At the time, even these large-cap stocks often had dividend yields exceeding 6%.

Of course, there were stocks with even higher yields. However, Pelican emphasized not just the yield level, but whether the company could sustainably maintain high dividend payouts. This stance remains unchanged today.

A new indicator to identify dividend growth: the surplus capacity index

Pelican’s dividend stock strategy uses dividend yields and shareholder perks as criteria, but its defining feature is a focus on sustainability—whether companies can continue providing stable dividends and perks over the long term.

Previously, he targeted undervalued stocks with a price-to-earnings ratio (PER) below 18 and a price-to-book ratio (PBR) below 1, along with an equity ratio of at least 45% as an indicator of financial strength to sustain dividends. Recently, he has added a new metric called the surplus capacity index. This is calculated by subtracting the dividend on equity (DOE) from return on equity (ROE), representing a company’s potential for future dividend increases.

What is the truly profitable investment strategy that Pelican arrived at after overcoming numerous failures and market crashes to build assets exceeding 300 million yen?

Using this new surplus capacity index to measure future dividend growth potential, along with a surprising stock analysis method and the high dividend + perks stocks that professionals recommend right now—details, including three specific surefire stock picks to target this March, are introduced in the paid version [FRIDAY Subscription].

■ Pelican’s X is here

■ Pelican’s blog “FIRE in Your 40s! Pelican Blog – Shareholder Perks and High Dividend Investing” is here