Nervous Trading in Tokyo, Itochu Drops 11%

Hiruki Nakamura
20 Apr, 2015
New York City

Stocks in Tokyo eased. China offered a large and unexpected stimulus as Chinese regulators crack down on speculative lending supporting a surge of more than 80% in benchmark indexes. Itochu annual sales surged 22% and net income soared 49%.

[R]4:30 PM Tokyo – Stocks in Tokyo eased. China offered a large and unexpected stimulus as Chinese regulators crack down on speculative lending supporting a surge of more than 80% in benchmark indexes. Itochu annual sales surged 22% and net income soared 49%.[/R]

Stocks in Tokyo eased after China offered an unexpected stimulus and lowered bank reserve ratio.

Chinese government in conjunction with the People’s Bank of China is engaged in engineering an economic slowdown and slowdown the overheated construction sector.

But the speculative flow in the last nine months have accelerated in the stock market forcing the Chinese regulator to curbing margin trading on Friday.

The central bank on Sunday was forced to react after stock market took a sudden dive in Friday’s trading.

Central bank trimmed the reserve requirement ratio by 100 basis-point to 18.5% following a sharp decline in market indexes on Friday after the China Securities Regulatory Commissioned made more share available for short selling and tightened margin lending rules.

Benchmark index in China rose 1.2% in the morning session but reversed market direction in the afternoon and closed down 1.6% for the day after regulators cracked down to curb speculative flow.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 18.39 to 19,634.49 and the broader Topix index slid 6.01 to 1,582.68.

The yen closed at 119.05 against a dollar.

Stocks in Review

Astellas Pharma Inc fell 0.7% to 1,883 yen after the Nikkei news reported pharmaceutical company’s fiscal year sales to March are expected to climb 10% to 1.25 trillion yen and operating profit to surge 50% to about 170 billion yen.

Itochu Corp plunged 11.4% to 4,720 yen after the trading company reported net sales in the first-quarter ending in February soared 21.7% to 42.71 billion yen from 35.10 billion yen in a year ago period.

Net income in the period surged 49.4% to 6.76 billion yen compared to 4.53 billion yen and diluted earnings per share gained to 13.47 yen from 9.71 yen in the same period a year ago.

The company forecasted net sales for the year to jump 5.4% to 45 billion yen and net income to climb 35.3% to 9.15 billion yen.

J. Front Retailing Co Ltd rose 1.4% to 1,920 yen after the department store chain operator agreed to acquire about 23% stake or for about 7.53 billion yen in the mail order company Senshukai Co Ltd.

NEXT Co., Ltd slipped 1.4% to 1,102 yen after the online real estate information provider said total sales in March climbed 39.9% to 2.08 billion yen and revenues from rental and real estate trade soared 28.6% to 1.03 billion yen from a year ago month.

Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd jumped 2.1% to 6,223 yen after Nikkei news reported pharmaceutical company plans to join hands with Kyoto University on stem cell research targeting treatments for heart disease and diabetes.