Thursday, July 21, 2005

Japanese equity markets quiet for earnings reports

by Brian Turner

After a day off for a holiday on Monday, the Japanese equities markets remained close to unchanged on Tuesday as investors played a waiting game ahead of a series of quarterly earnings reports due out of the United States later in the week.

Among the reports being anticipated are those from Google, McDonalds, and General Motors. The Nikkei 225 gained 0.05 percent to 11,764.84, while the Topix index closed down by 0.15 percent to 1,191.53.

Only 1.4 billion shares were traded on the Nikkei on the day.

Shares in companies that depend on oil in one way or another and export-dependent stocks were generally higher as crude oil prices fell overnight and as the yen fell in relation to the US dollar. In the airline sector, All Nippon Airways was up 1.5 percent to ¥347, while Japan Airlines gained 1.3 percent to ¥304.

Tire manufacturer Bridgestone rose 0.5 percent to ¥2.155. Canon was up 1.2 percent to ¥6,090, while Honda gained 1.1 percent to ¥5,650 and Sony was up 0.8 percent to ¥4,000. Toyota, however, lost 0.2 percent to ¥4,180 when Merrill Lynch downgraded Toyota from “buy” to “neutral”.

Industrial groups Mitsui Co. and Mitsubishi Corp. lost value on continuing worries that their liquefied natural gas project will be delayed. Their partner, Royal Dutch/Shell, said last week that the first shipments from the project will be put off to mid-2008, a delay of six months. Mitsui lost 1.6 percent to ¥1,015, while Mitsubishi declined by 1.5 percent to ¥1,515.

 

 

 

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