Can You Reach ¥100 Million with a Global Index Fund?

eMAXIS Slim creator Hideo Shirota makes the case for reaching ¥100 million through long-term dollar-cost averaging into a global equity index — and explains the investment philosophy behind it.

• The global all-country index (“all-country” fund) has returned an average of 9.72% per year since 1998. Starting at 25, investing ¥28,000/month for 35 years gets you to ¥100 million.
• Even at 5% returns, ¥88,000/month reaches ¥100 million; at 7%, ¥55,000/month. None of these numbers are unrealistic.
• The eMAXIS Slim fund series is approaching ¥25 trillion in AUM. At 5% returns, that generates over ¥1 trillion in annual gains — comparable in scale to Japan’s entire budget for addressing its declining birthrate.
• Active funds beat passive over a 10-year horizon only about 22% of the time for domestic equities, and barely over 10% for international equities (Morningstar 2025 analysis).
• William Sharpe’s arithmetic shows that active management’s average return equals passive before costs. After costs, passive wins by definition.
• Dollar-cost averaging actually benefits from drawdowns: buying more units cheaply raises cumulative returns. A scenario where markets crash then recover over five years beats a straight-line upward path in total accumulated return.
• The recommended core/satellite split is 70–80% core. Shirota himself has moved to 100% core and stopped satellite investing entirely.
• Japan’s index fund share of retail investment has now exceeded 40%. Unlike in the US, this shift is happening without financial advisors — individuals are choosing index funds on their own, signaling a rapid rise in financial literacy.

2026-04-16 · Watch on YouTube

Japanese page: オルカンで1億円は現実的か