Born into the wealthy Homma family of Sakata, a great rice port on Japan's west coast. The family harvested the crop of the Shonai plain and shipped it by sea to Osaka. In 1750 the young Munehisa took charge of the whole family trade — and the largest rice flow in Japan opened before him.

The Dojima Rice Exchange in Osaka — from 1730 the world's first organized futures market, trading rice by paper contract. More than 1,300 brokers roared in its hall. Homma noticed one thing: prices were moved not by the harvest but by the fear and greed of the traders. He began recording every day's open, high, low and close on rice paper.

«San-en Kinsen Hiroku» («The Fountain of Gold — a record of three monkeys») is regarded as the first book on market psychology. Its core idea: sentiment turns like Yin and Yang — «when everyone has turned bearish, the reason for prices to rise is forming». A trader, he wrote, must master not the crowd but his own discipline.

Legend says Homma made 100 winning trades in a row and amassed a fortune worth billions in today's money. Across the 600 km between Osaka and Sakata he ran his own «telegraph» — men on rooftops relaying prices by flag. Later he dominated the Edo exchange, became the shogun's financial advisor, and was granted honorary samurai rank.

After his death his notes and principles were compiled into the «Five Sakata Methods», and 19th-century Japanese merchants developed them into candlestick forms. Homma is often called the most successful trader in history — and in the language he discovered, the world reads charts today.