Nikkei Settles Lower in Tokyo, Machine Orders Slipped in July

Hiruki Nakamura
10 Sep, 2015
New York City

Nikkei average settled lower in choppy trading following the largest one-day gain since 2008. Core machinery orders slipped in July. Shimamura advanced on higher first-half sales.

[R]4:30 PM Tokyo – Nikkei average settled lower in choppy trading following the largest one-day gain since 2008. Core machinery orders slipped in July. Shimamura advanced on higher first-half sales.[/R]

Stocks in Tokyo settled lower after the largest one-day surge in more than six years and the Nikkei average declined more than 2%.

On the economic front, core machine orders in July slipped 3.6% to 805.6 billion yen compared to 7.9% increase in June, the Cabinet Office said.

For the year, core machine orders jumped 2.8% following a surge of 16.6% in the previous twelve months.

Total number of machinery orders for ships and from electric power companies in the month increased 2.2% and 11.9% to 2.47 trillion yen from a year ago month.

However, manufacturing orders in July gained 3.8% to 359.4 billion yen and non-manufacturing orders rose 1.8% to 449.4 billion yen.

The Nikkei 225 Stock Average declined 470.89 or 2.5% to 18,299.62 and the broader Topix index dropped 27.85 or 1.9% to 1,479.52.

The yen strengthened to 120.77 against a dollar.

Stocks in Review

Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corp gained 0.9% to 2,173 yen after the pharmaceutical products maker signed an agreement with the U.S.-based Biogen Inc for exclusive rights to develop and market oral compound drug for auto-immune diseases.

MTPC will receive $60 million and also get additional payments of $484 million for multiple indications and territories.

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth-quarter of this year.

MonotaRO Co., Ltd slipped 1.2% to 5,070 yen after the online retailer said sales in August surged 34% to 4.26 billion yen from 3.18 billion yen in the same month a year ago but tumbled 14.3% from July to 4.97 billion yen.

Samco Inc soared 4.7% to 943 yen after the electronic manufacturing equipment maker said net sales in the year ending in July soared 24.1% from a year ago to 5.25 billion yen from 4.23 billion yen.

Net income in the year more than doubled to 417 million yen compared to 190 million yen and earnings per share increased 59.32 yen from 27.05 yen in the same period a year ago.

Shimamura Co., Ltd gained 1.1% to 11,790 yen after the Nikkei news said women’s apparel retailer’s first-half sales is estimated to jump 6% to 270 billion yen and flat operating profit of 19.5 billion yen.

For the year, Shimamura forecast operating profit to soar 25% to 46 billion yen.