The Ceiling on the Cover

On the cover of a registration statement filed on 5 August 2026, under the heading 【届出の対象とした募集内国投資信託受益証券の金額】, Daiwa Asset Management prints one sentence: 各ファンドについて10兆円を上限とし、合計で40兆円を上限とします. Ten trillion yen (US$61.1 billion) for each fund, forty trillion (US$244 billion) in total. The document registers four courses of a single strategy — オール・マーケット・インカム戦略 in a 資産成長重視コース, an 奇数月定額分配コース, an 奇数月定率分配コース and a 予想分配金提示型コース — and ¥40 trillion (US$244 billion) is the largest figure printed on any of the 217 covers read here.

The field asks for an amount. Most of the 217 head it 【届出の対象とした募集（売出）内国投資信託受益証券の金額】 — the amount of the domestic investment trust beneficiary certificates whose offering or secondary distribution is the subject of the registration; One hundred and fifty-one head it that way; the other 66, from nine filers with Daiwa's 30 among them, print the same field without the （売出）. What goes in it is a maximum: the size of the offering the registration covers. It is not the fund's assets. It is set at filing, by the company filing, and printed twice on the first pages — on the cover and again at (3)【発行（売出）価額の総額】. Further in, at ＜信託金の限度額＞ in 第二部【ファンド情報】, the same registration bounds the same fund a second time, on a different quantity: the trust money the management company may add. Of thirty filers read one document each, all thirty bound it a second time. How it is labelled varies. Goldman Sachs writes it mid-paragraph with no label at all — 金5,000億円を限度として信託金を追加することができます, ¥500 billion (US$3.05 billion) — and so does Manulife, 各コースにつき1兆円を限度として, ¥1 trillion (US$6.11 billion). Nissay sets ③　信託金の上限 on its own line with 1,000億円とします — ¥100 billion (US$611 million) — beneath. Others read ＜信託金の限度額＞ or ④信託金限度額. The two bounds are set independently and bound different quantities, so they need not carry the same number, and as numbers they differ in 18 of the 30. Amova's cover bounds the offering at 30兆円を上限とします — ¥30 trillion (US$183 billion) — and its 信託金限度額 bounds the trust money at 1兆円を限度として, ¥1 trillion (US$6.11 billion). Daiwa's four courses are bounded at 10兆円 (US$61.1 billion) each on the cover and at 各ファンドについて１兆円を限度として — ¥1 trillion (US$6.11 billion) — further in. In twelve they agree: Sparx prints ¥1 trillion (US$6.11 billion) in both places, Barings ¥2 trillion (US$12.2 billion), Shinkin ¥100 billion (US$611 million) per portfolio and ¥300 billion (US$1.83 billion) combined in both. Reading all 217 for the bound rather than thirty, every one carries it, and no filer prints it in some of its registrations and not others; Counting the phrase wherever it falls in the document, and not only where it heads a section — a flat text search cannot tell the two apart — 159 of the 217 print 信託金の限度額 or 信託金限度額: 101 the first, 62 the second, four both. The numeric split above is a count over the thirty I compared, and which document of a filer's is read moves it.

Between 5 and 13 August 2026, EDINET's list carried 217 documents of that description — 有価証券届出書（内国投資信託受益証券）, the registration statement for domestic investment trust beneficiary certificates — from 30 filers. They arrived on six dates: six on the 5th, 36 on the 6th, 38 on the 7th, 73 on the 10th, 37 on the 12th and 27 on the 13th. The list carries none for the 8th, the 9th or the 11th.

Every one of the 217 prints a figure in that field. Not most of them, and not the ones I could read: 217 of 217. Whatever else this count is uncertain about, it is not uncertain about that.

Eighteen distinct amounts appear. ¥1 trillion (US$6.11 billion) in 83 filings; ¥10 trillion (US$61.1 billion) in 40; ¥5 trillion (US$30.5 billion) in 19; ¥500 billion (US$3.05 billion) in 18; ¥2 trillion (US$12.2 billion) in 16; ¥3 trillion (US$18.3 billion) and ¥20 trillion (US$122 billion) in six each; ¥200 billion (US$1.22 billion) and ¥300 billion (US$1.83 billion) in five each; ¥100 billion (US$611 million) and ¥2.5 trillion (US$15.3 billion) in four each; ¥30 trillion (US$183 billion) and ¥1.5 trillion (US$9.16 billion) in three each; and one filing apiece at ¥250 billion (US$1.53 billion), ¥700 billion (US$4.27 billion), ¥9 trillion (US$54.9 billion), ¥40 trillion (US$244 billion) and ¥2 billion (US$12.2 million). Fifteen of the eighteen carry a single significant digit; the other three are ¥1.5 trillion, ¥2.5 trillion and ¥250 billion.

The commonest figure, ¥1 trillion (US$6.11 billion), comes from 18 different filers. The second commonest, ¥10 trillion, comes from four. That gap is a concentration: 38 of the 40 filings at ¥10 trillion come from two filers. On 10 August, Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Asset Management filed 22 of these documents, 17 of them for funds whose names begin ＳＭＴ and the other five for its ＤＣ, ＳＢＩ and ３資産バランス funds, every one printing ¥10 trillion (US$61.1 billion), every one printing a subscription period of 183 days; it had printed the same figure on two more on 7 August, making 24, and Daiwa prints it on 14. Volume by itself does not carry the figure. Mitsubishi UFJ Asset Management filed 17 the same day, every one at ¥1 trillion and over periods of 363 and 364 days rather than 183; Asset Management One filed 13 on the 7th, ten at ¥1 trillion, two at ¥3 trillion (US$18.3 billion) and one at ¥2 trillion (US$12.2 billion).

The two ends of the range are both Daiwa's. The largest is the ¥40 trillion above. The smallest, filed on 12 August, is ¥2 billion (US$12.2 million) for 財形給付金ファンド, a fund attached to the payroll savings benefit scheme — one fund's whole ceiling, where the ¥40 trillion is four funds combined at ¥10 trillion each.

Add the largest figure printed on each of the 217 covers and the total is ¥914,352,000,000,000 — ¥914 trillion, or US$5.58 trillion. It is worth being exact about what that number is. It is the sum of 217 maxima, each set by the company filing, none of them a projection, none of them money that exists. A sum of ceilings measures the ceilings. It does not measure anything underneath them.

Twenty-nine of the 217 print more than one ceiling in the field, because there is more than one offering to bound. Franklin Templeton Japan's registration for a Korean equity index fund, filed 7 August, prints two: 当初申込額500億円 for the initial subscription and 継続申込額1兆円 for the continuing one — ¥50 billion (US$305 million) and ¥1 trillion (US$6.11 billion). Separately, sixteen covers use the word 各ファンド, each fund, because the registration covers several; ten of those also print a 合計 line, the combined figure across them.

A second maximum sits eight fields below the first. 【申込期間】, the subscription period, gives the dates between which the offering is open, and all 217 print one.

They are, for the most part, the same period. The median is 183 days, and 185 of the 217 fall between 180 and 186 — half a year, drawn from whichever day the filer chose to start.

Two hundred and fourteen of the 217 also print, inside that same field, what happens when the half year runs out. Daiwa's wording is 終了前に有価証券届出書を提出することにより更新されます — renewed by filing a registration statement before the period ends. Franklin Templeton's is 上記期間満了前に有価証券届出書を提出することによって更新されます. Mitsubishi UFJ's says the period 更新される予定です, is expected to be renewed.

That is what the population is. Two hundred and seventeen registration statements in six filing days are not 217 funds beginning. They are, for the most part, the same document arriving again as each six-month window closes — a cadence, printed on the face of each document that keeps it going.

Three of the 217 show the other case. Asset Management One registered a pair of funds in a single filing on 10 August, both names carrying the date 2026－09 and the label 限定追加型, limited additional type. Their initial subscription period runs 34 days, their continuing period seven, and the field then prints 2026年10月8日以降、購入のお申込みの受付は行いません — from 8 October, no further subscription applications will be accepted. Nissay Asset Management's ニッセイ・円建てグローバル社債／バランスファンド２０２６－０９, filed 7 August, prints 2026年9月30日以降は、取得の申込みの受付けを行いません. Rakuten Investment Management's 楽天日本新興市場株ダブル・ブル prints that the fund is due to reach maturity and be redeemed on 9 November 2026. In all three the period ends rather than renews, and the document says so.

At the other end are the year-long ones. Mitsubishi UFJ's ＭＡＸＩＳ　Ｊリート・コア上場投信 prints 8 August 2026 to 9 August 2027, 366 days. Franklin Templeton's continuing period runs to 15 December 2027, 469 days from its start. Twenty-four of the 217 print a period of 350 days or more.

One field on the cover is almost always answered the same way. 【縦覧に供する場所】, the place where the document is made available for inspection, reads 該当事項はありません in 185 of the 217 and 該当ありません in 30. Two name a place, and both name the same one: 株式会社東京証券取引所, the Tokyo Stock Exchange, at 東京都中央区日本橋兜町２番１号.

Those two are Amova Asset Management's 上場Ｔｒａｃｅｒｓ　米国債０－２年ラダー（為替ヘッジなし）and the MAXIS J-REIT fund above — the two exchange-traded funds in the set. The field tracks whether there is an exchange to name. It names an exchange where the document names one, and 215 of the 217 print the not-applicable form instead.

The third maximum is a rate. 126 of the 217 print a ceiling on the subscription fee, and the ceilings cluster hard: 3.3 per cent in 66 filings, 2.2 in 33, 3.85 in 11, 2.75 in nine, 1.65 in three, 1.1 in two, 0.55 in two. Invesco's document prints its figure as 3.85％（税抜き3.50％）以内, within 3.85 per cent, 3.50 before consumption tax — the ceiling includes the tax. Sixty-nine open the field with ありません — there is no subscription fee. Seventeen, all Daiwa's, print 申込手数料を徴収している販売会社はありません, that no distributor is charging one at present. These groups are not exclusive and do not add to 217: read to the next field heading, 147 of the 217 name the distributor inside 【申込手数料】, and all 126 that print a ceiling are among them.

So the cover and the section below it carry three maxima: an amount that may be offered, printed on the cover itself; a period during which it may be offered, at (7)【申込期間】; and a rate that may be charged for taking it up, at (5)【申込手数料】 — the last two inside 第一部【証券情報】, which opens just below the cover. None of the three describes what will happen. Each marks an edge, and the document is written from the edges in.

Two things about the ¥914 trillion figure. Where a cover prints both a per-fund and a combined ceiling, I took the larger, and where it prints an initial and a continuing one, I took the continuing. That choice bites on 16 covers, and on every one of them it changes the figure: taking the smaller each time gives ¥766 trillion (US$4.68 trillion) instead of ¥914 trillion and removes the ¥40 trillion, ¥20 trillion and ¥9 trillion entries from the distribution entirely, while adding four smaller ones. The ¥1 trillion mode survives it, at 83 filings either way. And the figures are not additive in any other sense — several of the 217 register the same funds that earlier statements registered, so the same fund can stand behind more than one ceiling in the sum.

The 217 covers name 30 filers and, between them, some hundreds of funds. What each of the 30 was asked for was a largest number. Eighty-three of the 217 answered with the same one.

On currency: the yen figures above are converted at ¥163.8 = US$1, the single rate this file uses, taken for 24 July 2026, for which the daily reference rate is 163.82. It is applied to every figure regardless of the date on the document that printed it.