Nikkei Gains; Production, Retail Sales Fall

Mayank Mehta, Chandrasekhar Atreya and Sanjay Barot
06 Jul, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Japan rallied tracking gains in China and other Asian markets. The coincident index shows that factory production and retail sales dropped marginally in May. Elpida Memory Inc is planning to cut debts and buy assets after it expects to post record profits in the year.

[R]5:00 PM Tokyo, Japan – Stocks in Japan rallied tracking gains in China and other Asian markets. The coincident index shows that factory production and retail sales dropped marginally in May. Elpida Memory Inc is planning to cut debts and buy assets after it expects to post record profits in the year.][/R]

Stocks in Japan rallied echoing market sentiments in China, the largest market for Japanese exports, and other Asian markets. Indexes gained despite the latest indicators of economic health showed a drop for the first time in 14 months.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 0.77% or 71.26 points to close at 9,338.04 in Tokyo today and of the stocks in the index 174 increased, 39 declined, and 12 remained unchanged.

The coincident index, a composite of 11 indicators that include factory production and retail sales dropped marginally to 101.2 in May from 101.3 in April, the Cabinet Office said in Tokyo today.

The report also showed that the leading index, a composite of 12 indicators including stock prices and consumer confidence fell to 98.7 in May.

Elpida Memory Inc, Japan’s largest maker of memory chips, is planning to cut its debt and buy assets after recovery in computer sales will help the company post record profits this year.

“We plan to seek opportunities including partnerships and acquisitions. We need to expand the range of our business into areas such as mobile phones and television chips by cutting out debt to equity ratio from 1.3 to 1 by the end of the year and eventually to 0.3,” said Executive Officer Takehiro Fukuda in an interview in his Tokyo office today.

Osaka’s prefectural government today made a statement at a local press club that it proposes to set up a consumer lending zone with looser lending rules, including a maximum interest rate of 29.2%.

Nikkei Movers

Yokogawa Electric Corporation led gainers in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average with a rise of 4.2% followed by Mitsui Chemicals, Inc 4.0%, Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd 3.7% and Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd 3.4% and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc 3.4%.

Fast Retailing Co Ltd led the decliners in the Nikkei 225 Stock Average with a loss of 2.9% followed by Alps Electric Co Ltd 2.9%, CSK Holdings Corporation 2.4%, Dentsu Inc 2.0% and Marui Group Co Ltd 1.7%.

Other Movers

ABC-Mart Inc dropped 2.3% to 3,290.00 yen after the shoe retailer said same-store sales in June dropped 1.5% from a year earlier, dragged down by unique customer sales decline of 6.9%, according to Bloomberg report.

Alconix Corp, the maker of non- ferrous metal products, gained 7.7% to 3,000.00 yen.

Izutsuya Co Ltd climbed 8.4% to 64.00 yen after the department store operator reported first-quarter net income of 451 million yen compared with a year-earlier loss.

Tosei Corp, the property developer, fell 6.3% to 29,980.00 yen.

West Japan Railway Company rose 1.6% to 330,500.00 yen after the rail operator had its share-price estimate boosted to 398,000 yen from 370,000 yen by Takuya Osaka.