Nikkei Closes Higher Following New York Rebounce

Hiruki Nakamura
03 Sep, 2015
New York City

Nikkei average in Tokyo closed higher and the yen strengthened in thin trading. Nikkei traded above 18,000 but investors worried that the quarter profit may fall below expectations.

[R]4:30 PM Tokyo – Nikkei average in Tokyo closed higher and the yen strengthened in thin trading. Nikkei traded above 18,000 but investors worried that the quarter profit may fall below expectations.[/R]

Asian and Japanese markets staged a mild rebound following higher closing in international markets in overnight trading.

Market indexes rebounded after widely followed indexes in New York and Europe closed up nearly between 0.7% and 1.5%.

Market sentiment was still tentative in Tokyo on the growing uneasiness about the economic slowdown in China and sharp fall in commodities prices.

Japanese government is set to announce its preliminary spending request for the next fiscal year beginning April 2016.

The current fiscal year spending topped 96 trillion yen and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has requested various ministries to curtail spending without setting targets.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average gained 86.99 or 0.5% to 18,182.39 and the broader Topix index rose 8.99 to 1,474.98.

The yen strengthened to 120.29 against a dollar.

Stocks in Review

ABC-Mart Inc declined 4.6% to 7,010 yen after same store sales at shoe retailer in August jumped 6.2% and sales per customer soared 13.8% while customer count declined 6.7%.

Total sales in the month advanced 9.7% and sales per customer surged 13.7% while customer count slumped 4.6%.

Hitachi Metals, Ltd decreased 1% to 1,460 yen after the Nikkei news said metal products maker plans to invest 15 billion yen or $122 million to expand the domestic production capacity for special alloy aircraft components.

Monex Group, Inc closed unchanged at 302 yen after the online securities services provider said total forex volumes for the group in August soared 9.6% to $42.2 billion from $38.5 billion in July and surged 44% to $29.3 billion in a year ago month.

Trading value in the month jumped 4.6% to 1.88 trillion yen compared to 1.79 trillion yen in July but surged 31.1% from 1.43 trillion yen in the same month a year ago.

Panasonic Corporation gained 1.2% to 1,273 yen after the home appliance maker said revenue in the home-energy storage may generate 10 billion yen in the overseas market by fiscal 2018 and will start selling the systems from October in Australia.

Resona Holdings Inc slipped 1.1% to 584.20 yen after the financial service provider forecasted profit for the year ending in March 2016 to decline 17% to 175 billion yen.