Tuesday, March 7, 2006

Tokyo markets fall on domestic, export declines

by Brian Turner

Equities markets in Tokyo were down on Tuesday on a general weakness in shares in both domestically focused and export-dependent sectors, as well as on uneasiness ahead of any announcement from the Bank of Japan‘s meeting on Thursday. The Nikkei 225 closed down by 1.1 percent to 15,726.02, while the Topix index dropped 0.5 percent to 1,617.87.

Real estate was down 1.8 percent as a sector, with Mitsui Fudosan dropping 1 percent to ¥2,410 and Mitsubishi Estate down 1.6 percent to ¥2,415.

The retail sector dropped 0.6 percent, as did banking. In retail, Seven and I lost 0.4 percent to ¥4,480. Banker Mitsubishi UFJ declined by 0.6 percent to ¥1,670,000.

Electric utilities were down, as well. Tokyo Electric Power dropped 2.2 percent to ¥3,090 when Merrill Lynch downgraded it from “buy” to “neutral”. Kansai Electric lost 2 percent to ¥2,730.

The precision machinery sector as a whole was down 1.1 percent, with Olympus dropping 2.2 percent.

Softbank was down 8.5 percent to ¥3,140 when Standard & Poor’s put it on credit watch on the news that Softbank is in discussions toward purchasing UK telecommunications company Vodafone, which S&P sees as potentially putting too great a financial burden on Softbank.

Bucking the negative trend, automobile manufacturer Suzuki gained 3 percent to ¥2,565 on the news that General Motors will sell most of its stake in Suzuki.

 

 

 

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