Nikkei Extends Gain by 2.2%, Dentsu Lifts Annual Outlook

Hiruki Nakamura
12 Nov, 2013
New York City

The weakness in yen drove market indexes higher for the second day in a row. The yen approached to 100 mark. Dentsu Corp lifted its annual net outlook by 73%. Sony estimated PlayStation 4 game console unit sale in the year to reach 4 million.

[R]4:30 PM Tokyo – The weakness in yen drove market indexes higher for the second day in a row. The yen approached to 100 mark. Dentsu Corp lifted its annual net outlook by 73%. Sony estimated PlayStation 4 game console unit sale in the year to reach 4 million.[/R]

The decline in yen lifted stocks for the second day in a row and the Nikkei extended annual gain to 40%.

The Nikkei index soared 2.2% after the yen approached 100 mark against the dollar after the index rallied 1.3% in Monday’s trading.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average climbed 318.84 or 2.2% to 14,588.68 and the Topix jumped 19.76 to 1,205.41.

The yen eased to 99.78 against one dollar.

Stocks in Review

Toyota Motor Corp increased 70 yen to 6,320 yen and Honda Motor Co. gained 65 yen to 4,000 yen.

Nissan Motor Co Ltd rose 9 yen to 906 yen and the automaker plans to launch luxury mid-size Infiniti model based cars in Japan for the first time since it launched in the U.S. 24 years ago.

Nissan has set a goal to sell world-wide sell of 500,000 luxury brand Infiniti vehicles by 2017 and estimated 10% sale from Japan.

Toyota launched its Lexus brand in Japan in 2005 and currently sells about 10% or 42,300 units in Japan.

Sony climbed 59 yen to 1,700 yen and the diversified electronics and entertainment conglomerate expects to sell 3 million of PlayStation 4 game console units by the year-end.

Softbank Corp jumped 160 yen to 7,580 yen and Fast Retailing Co. soared 1,400 yen or 4.6% to 32,200 yen.

Hitachi, Limited jumped 2.2% to 703 yen after the Japan-based diversified company said Mitsubishi Corporation agreed to sell its 51% stake to the company and Japan Space Imaging Corporation, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi and will jointly operate the satellite imagery business from November 15.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc jumped 2% to 4,865 yen after the Japan-based bank reported group operating revenue in the first-half soared 14% to 2.36 trillion from 2.07 trillion a year earlier.

Net profit in the period surged 52.8% to 505.71 billion yen compared to 331.04 billion yen and diluted earnings per share jumped to 370.28 yen from 244.43 yen a year ago.

The bank added gross profit jumped to 138.2 billion yen to 1.51 trillion yen and total credit cost dropped to 87.6 billion yen to a net reversal of 39.6 billion yen from a year earlier.

For the year ending in March 2014, the bank lifted its forecast of a group net profit of 750 billion yen from 580 billion a year ago.

Dentsu Corp gained 5.4% after the largest advertising company revised higher its group net profit estimate for the current fiscal year by 73% to 33.1 billion yen from the previous estimate of 19.1 billion yen on strong domestic advertising demand.