Realty, Retailers Rise in Tokyo

Trupti Mehta
17 Jul, 2009
New York City

Japanese investors focused on domestic stocks after the prospect global recovery looks dim in the near term. Real estate and retail stocks closed up. Consumer lenders Aiful and Promise dropped on the worries that opposition party DPJ may curb lending practices.

[R]7:00 AM New York, 5:00 PM Tokyo – Japanese investors focused on domestic stocks after the prospect global recovery looks dim in the near term. Real estate and retail stocks closed up. Consumer lenders Aiful and Promise dropped on the worries that opposition party DPJ may curb lending practices.[/R]

For weeks now investors in Japan have been questioning the pace of economic recovery in the U.S. and focusing more on the domestic stocks. The mood has shifted among investors and increasingly they are searching for companies in the defensive sectors in the domestic economy.

The real estate markets in Japan, China, India and Indonesia has seen the return of liquidity in the last one month as global investors resume deal making.

In weak trading stocks traded higher in the session and closed up at the end of the day. The Nikkei 225 Index in Tokyo closed higher 51.16 or 0.55% to 9,395.32.

Gainers & Losers

Aiful Corp decreased 3.5% to 273 yen and Promise Company Limited decreased 4.9% to 899 yen after investors worried that opposition party DPJ election win may curb the lending practices at both high interest rate consumer lenders.

Daiwa Securities increased 3% to 520 yen and Nomura increased 2.8% to 734 yen after Nikkei reported that research firm Dealogic estimated 90% surge in trading commission in the quarter ending in June.

Real estate stocks climbed after investors listened to Barclays’ analyst Takashi Hashimoto as reported by the Bloomberg News.

Mitsubishi Estate Company Ltd increased 4.4% to 1,478 yen and Sumitomo Realty & Development added 4.1% to 1,646 yen. The yen closed at 93.68 against dollar.

NEC dropped 9% to 288 yen on media report suggesting that the company may raise as much as 150 billion yen.

Sony Corp decreased 0.9% to 2,265 yen after its joint venture with Ericsson reported the fourth consecutive quarterly loss. The mobile hand set venture reported a loss of 213 million euros compared to income of 6 million euros a year ago on 43% decline mobile hand set shipments of 13.8 million.

Nikkei 200 Average Movers

NEC Corp led the decliners in the Nikkei 225 index of 8.8% followed by losses in Sumitomo Osaka Cement Co Ltd of 4.3%, in Meidensha Corp of 3.8%, in GS Yuasa Corporation of 3.5% and in Mazda Motor Corp of 3.3%.

Tokyu Land Corp led gainers in the Nikkei 225 index with a rise of 5.1% followed by gains in Mizuho Securities Co Ltd of 4.6%, in Mitsubishi Estate Co Ltd of 4.3% and KDDI Corp of 4.2%.

Asian Markets Review

The Nikkei 225 Index in Tokyo closed higher 51.16 or 0.55% to 9,395.32, Hang Seng index in Hong Kong increased 443.79 or 2.42% to 18,805.66, CSI 300 index in China higher 18.57 or 0.53% to 3,519.81. ASX 200 index in Australia increased 5.20 or 0.13% to 4,000.80. The FTSE Bursa KL Composite index in Malaysia closed higher 12.02 or 1.08% to 1,120.90.

The Kospi Index in South Korea increased 7.88 or 0.55% to close at 1,440.10. SET index in Thailand closed higher 13.37 or 2.29% to 596.11 and JSE Index in Indonesia decreased 11.60 or 0.55% to 2,106.35. The Sensex index in India increased 494.67 or 3.47% to 14,744.92.