Nikkei Halts 12-Day Rally, Yen Trade Sideways

Hiruki Nakamura
02 Jun, 2015
New York City

Nikkei in Tokyo halted a 12-day rally and yen traded sideways following mixed closings in New York and in Europe. Japan Tobacco

[R]4:30 PM Tokyo – Nikkei in Tokyo halted a 12-day rally and yen traded sideways following mixed closings in New York and in Europe. Japan Tobacco’s subsidiary in Quebec, Canada was slapped with multi-billion fines which is expected to be trimmed on an appeal.[/R]

Nikkei in Tokyo traded lower and halted a 12-day rally and yen traded sideways.

On the economic front, the monetary base in May surged 35.6% to 307.38 trillion yen followed by 35.2% to climb in April, the Bank of Japan said today.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average fell 26.68 to 20,543.19 and the broader Topix index slid 4.35 to 1,674.21.

The yen closed at 124.50 against a dollar.

Stocks in Review

ANA Holdings Inc slumped 2.7% to 331 yen after the Nikkei news said a creditor of bankrupt Skymark Airlines Inc. had called for a restructuring proposal without ANA as the sponsor.

ANA president Shinya Katanozaka said it will not withdraw as a sponsor for Skymark and further he added ""we will do what we can to help budget carrier.""

Separately, the ANA and consortium including Mitsubishi Heavy and some financial institutes agreed to jointly establish a new Dedicated Aircraft Maintenance Company “MRO Japan” in Okinawa.

Japan Tobacco Inc dropped 1.8% to 4,532.50 yen after the Canadian court ordered
Its biggest judgment in Canadian history that Japan Tobacco’s Canadian unit and two other companies to jointly pay $12.4 billion to plaintiffs to the Quebec-based smokers group.

Kansai Electric Power Co. Inc gained 1.4% to 1,416.50 yen after the electric power supplier raised prices for residential customers due to higher costs for imported fuels in the absence of nuclear power.

The average price hike is 4.62% for the four months through September and 8.36% starting in October and electricity bill for an average household to jump from 7,932 yen to 8,208 yen from June and to 8,481 yen from October.

NTT DoCoMo Inc climbed 3.9% to 2,337 yen after the mobile communication company’s chief financial officer in an interview with the Nikkei daily said that the company plans to lift return on equity to “at least 10%” by the fiscal March 2018, up from the current of 7.4%.

Panasonic Corporation fell 0.5% to 1,806.50 yen after the diversified electronics gadgets maker plans to annual revenues from its energy storage systems business in Australia for about 10 billion yen by fiscal 2018.