Wednesday, February 22, 2006

Japanese equities down on chip-related shares

by Brian Turner

The Tokyo equities markets were down on Wednesday as chip-related shares followed their American counterparts lower.

The Nikkei 225, which is heavily weighted for technology stocks, dropped 0.7 percent on the day to 15,762.54, while the Topix index dropped only 0.2 percent, helped out somewhat by rising steel shares.

Nippon Steel, Japan’s largest steel maker, gained 1.2 percent to ¥432, while JFE was up 1.7 percent to ¥4,130, helped out by recent mergers and acquisitions activity internationally.

Also seeing gains on the day was construction machinery manufacturer Komatsu, which gained 4.9 percent to ¥1,976 on what Daiwa Securities called strong demand, especially in China.

On the losing side, chip equipment maker Tokyo Electron dropped 2.7 percent to ¥7,870, while Advantest declined by 4.5 percent to ¥12,740.

Shares in the automobile manufacturing sector also followed Wall Street lower, with Toyota losing 1.7 percent to ¥6,280.

The banking sector declined on the day on speculation that Japanese interest rates will likely stay at zero for some time to come, even after the Bank of Japan begins to end its easy money policy. Mitsubishi UFJ lost 0.6 percent to ¥1,590,000, while Resona dropped 3.5 percent to ¥382,000.

 

 

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