Tokyo Stocks Hover Near Seven Month High, Monetary Base Tops 100 Trillion Yen

Chandrasekhar Atreya
05 Jan, 2011
New York City

Tokyo stocks drop after hitting a new 7

[R]5:00 PM Tokyo, Japan – Tokyo stocks drop after hitting a new 7½-month high. Japan’s monetary base crosses 100 trillion yen for the first time since April 2006. Toshiba’s subsidiary agrees to co-develop a large nuclear plant with China.[/R]

Japanese stocks fluctuated and closed lower in trade today due to lack of fresh incentives after rising nearly 170 points on Tuesday. Investors refrained from buying as stocks fell across the board in Asia.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average lost 0.17% or 17.33 to 10,380.77. The broader Topix

The yen closed at 82.04 yen to a dollar and 108.92 yen to a euro in Tokyo today.

The country’s monetary base rose 7% from a year ago to 104.02 trillion yen in December, surpassing 100 trillion yen for the first time since April 2006, the Bank of Japan said today.

The monetary base is the total balance of current accounts deposited at the central bank, plus bank notes and coins in circulation. The monetary base has been rising now for 28 months in a row.

U.S. auto sales rose for the 11 month in a row in December with General Motors, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler Group reporting higher sales.

But Toyota Motor Corp, beset with recall problems, saw its December U.S. sales fall 5.5% from a year earlier.

Sharp Corp said Tuesday production of LCD at two of its factories shut down in 2009 have been started again.

Production lines at the plants in Tenri, Nara Prefecture and Taki, Mie Prefecture, were shut down in 2009 but with demand rising sharply for small and midsize panels used in smartphones, they were back in full production again by the end of 2010, according to the company.

Japan Airlines Corp and IBM Japan Ltd said Tuesday they have decided to discontinue their joint venture in system development as JAL plans an overhaul of its IT operations.

JAL and IBM formed an IT alliance in 2001, with the latter taking a stake in JAL Information Technology, which is now at 51%. The airline operator will acquire all shares of JAL Information Technology held by IBM Japan at the end of June and turn the company into a subsidiary.

H.I.S Co, the travel agency, unloaded 3 million shares of the budget airline Skymark Airlines Inc, cutting its stake from 14.8% to 10.1%, in light of its diminished business cooperation with the carrier.

H.I.S will book the 3.1 billion yen gain from the sale made between December 20 and December 29 as an extraordinary profit. The company has raised its group net profit outlook accordingly by 1.8 billion yen for the year ending October 2011 to 7 billion yen, up 110% on the year.

Same store sales at McDonald’s Holding Co. (Japan) rose 11.6% in December from a year ago month, for the first time in two months, according to the company’s President Eiko Harada, who said this while announcing new menu items in Tokyo today.

Toshiba Corp’s unit Westinghouse Electric Co will work with State Nuclear Power Technology Corp of China to co-develop a large nuclear reactor, the Nikkei business daily said today.

Westinghouse and SNPTC will lead a project to develop the CAP1400, a 1.4 million kilowatt class pressurized water reactor powerful enough to meet the energy needs of 500,000 typical Japanese households.

Stock Movers

Toyota Motor Corp gained 0.92% to 3,295 yen and the company said it will extend in April permanent jobs to nearly 400 of its temporary administrative workers.

Toshiba Corp rose 2.45% 460 yen after the company reported that it will roll out large 3-D TV’s that can be viewed without special glasses in 2011.

Sharp Corp, which opened two of its idling plants, gained 3.05% to 879 yen.

Chuo Mitsui Trust lost 2.05% to 334 yen while Denki Kagaku dropped 2.8% to 382 yen.

Hitachi Ltd gained 1.14% to 443 yen and Itochu Corp gained 2.01% to 861 yen.

Meidensha Corp was the biggest gainer with 5.33% to 415 yen.