Nikkei Edges Up 0.7%

Chandrasekhar Atreya
26 Aug, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Japan traded higher for the first time in five days helped by a weakened but steady yen. Ozawa decides to challenge Kan for the ruling party leadership. Domestic shipments of solar cells and personal computers rise in Japan.

[R]5:00 PM Tokyo, Japan – Stocks in Japan traded higher for the first time in five days helped by a weakened but steady yen. Ozawa decides to challenge Kan for the ruling party leadership. Domestic shipments of solar cells and personal computers rise in Japan.[/R]

Stocks in Tokyo rose for the first time in five days after the yen started to weaken and Wall Street rallied. In a volatile trading, stocks closed higher.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average rallied 0.69% after falling as much as 0.1% or 61.09 points to close at 8,906.48. The broader Topix also gained 0.6% to close at 811.79, after falling as much as 0.3% in earlier trade today.

In the Nikkei index, stocks 142 gained, 70 dropped and 13 stayed the same.

Ichiro Ozawa, former Secretary General of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, said Thursday he will run for the party’s leadership election after securing the support of former premier Yukio Hatoyama. The elections are scheduled on September 14.

Domestic shipments of solar cells rose 160% in the half year to June to 410,263 kilowatts from a year earlier, the Japan Photovoltaic Energy Association reported Thursday. For the quarter to June, the shipments were 140% higher at 197,828 kilowatts.

Japan and five Southeast Asian nations on Thursday agreed to carry out action plans aimed at revitalizing industries along the Mekong River through cooperative and cross border efforts.

At the second Mekong-Japan Economic Minister’s meeting held in Da Nang, in central Vietnam, Economy Minister Masayuki Naoshima met with other ministers from Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The first meeting was held last autumn.

Domestic shipments of personal computers rose 14.4% year-on-year to 721,000 units in July, the eleventh monthly increase in a row, the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association said Thursday.

Shipments of desktop PCs climbed 26.2% and shipments of standard size notebooks climbed 9.1% to 472,000 units. Total personal computer shipments in value climbed 13% to 66.1 billion yen, up for the seventh consecutive month as prices stabilized.

Amid the yen’s rapid rise, retail traders sold the yen to purchase foreign currencies in record amounts. The dollar momentarily weakened to the 83 yen on Tuesday to a 15-year low.
Net buying of the Australian and American dollars and other foreign currencies against the yen on the Tokyo Financial Exchange’s Click 365 market rose to record 549,818 margin contracts or nearly 470 billion yen.

Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ, and Mizuho Corporate Bank, the three mega banks of Japan are focusing on Central and South America as the next centers of overseas growth.

Japanese and other Asian companies are rushing to break into these areas on hopes of infrastructure demand as Colombia plans projects worth $26 billion.

Kuraray Co set it sights on the huge farms of North America for a film version of Eval, its trademark for ethylene vinyl alcohol resin. Eval is highly gas-impermeable resin that works many times better than polyethylene as a gas barrier. First developed by Kuraray in 1970, it is used mainly as a food wrapping and as a material for gasoline tanks.

Ito-Yokado Co and Maruetsu Inc are beefing up their online grocery businesses. Internet supermarket services are offered by 118 of Ito’s bricks-and-mortar supermarkets at the end of February. The number will be expanded to 150 of its 170 locations by the end of February next year.

The Seven & I Holdings Co unit sees online supermarket sales increasing by 50% this year to around 30 billion yen.

Glory Ltd is expanding sales of money handling machines in China’s interior places, looking to capitalize on growing demand for these machines as personal incomes grow and ATM network spread.

Asahi Breweries Ltd, Japan’s second-largest beer maker, said it will pay A$364 million in cash for Australian soft drink maker P&N Beverages as it builds on the acquisition made last year of Cadbury Plc’s Australian drinks unit.

The acquisition will be completed by November, Tokyo-based Asahi said in a statement today.

Canon Inc, the world’s largest camera maker, said it may raise overseas output and review prices for its products if the yen continues to strengthen.

“We plan to cut production costs first, but if the yen appreciates further, we may have to consider boosting the ratio of overseas production and we may also review our pricing as we pay close attention to forex rates,” said Masaya Maeda, head of camera division at Canon while talking to reporters in Tokyo today.