Black Friday

Nikkei dropped 300 points.

In 24 hours dollar-yen went 87->86->85->84.

Markets everywhere tumbled. (Dubai wants a debt moratorium, there go Victoria Beckham & Co. emirate homes...)

We are all waiting, with bated breath, for Wall Street.

Is this "black Friday" ominous??

Love In Field

China is the new America.
It's where everyone wants to sell products to.

I don't make cars.
I don't make batteries.
I can make body scrubs. I will call the line Love In Field, and sell them in Japan too.

Maybe my fantastic spa will kindly carry the line first. First, the backstreets of Harajuku. Then, China.

Tokyo Markets

http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/movie/feature36.html

Slight st..st... stutter.

Tokyo Markets Sept 29 Tues

http://www.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/movie/feature15.html

Tokyo Markets

TWAS THE NIGHT BEFORE SILVER WEEK

After 3 consecutive days of modest gains the Nikkei slipped into negative territory, taking cues from Wall Street which also closed down after reaching a fresh new yearly high on Wednesday.
Nikkei ended the day 10,370, down 0.73% from Thursday's close.
Investors were somewhat sidelined today, hesitant to take on any strong position ahead of the long 5-day weekend in Japan.
Kinda makes sense since as soon as the holiday ends a slew of midterm earnings reports will be released.

Speaking of the yen, it’s eased off slightly to the lower 91 range.
It's still a strong yen to the greenback, though.

ご利用は計画的に

In the morning session we saw the Nikkei slip 152 points.
Consumer credit firm Aiful officially sought a debt reprieve—ie asking its lenders if it can delay making its own loan payments. (!!!)
This came as a slight shock to investors as just this week the new bank minister Kamei announced he is preparing to allow more leeway for small businesses to pay back *its* loans--something that was already raising a few eyebrows.

So Aiful's application for an extension triggered a rush to sell shares of Aiful and other similar consumer credit companies like Promise and Takefuji.
Aiful plunged 27% to its stop price of 134.
Promise and Takefuji each fell over 10% at one point, though they rebounded from their lows by closing time.

The losses carried over to the mega-Banks, who are the ones that lend to these consumer financials.
Aiful lenders Sumitomo Trust and Aozora lost 1.5% and 2% respectively.

HONESTY PAYS OFF

But in the afternoon session saw that Banks were the second best performing sector today, with Mitsubishi UFJ, MUFG and Sumitomo Mitsui finishing up.

One analyst I spoke to says this is due to Deputy Prime Minister Kan’s comments in the afternoon.
Kan said Japan must continue to face the economic crisis seriously despite positive data we may see overseas.
The frankness of the comment seemed to lift sentiment in the banking sector somewhat.

That’s it!

I ♥ MONEY.

Tokyo Markets

THE NIKKEI ROSE ON THE FIRST FULL DAY OF THE NEW GOVERNMENT IN OFFICE.

But looks like Tokyo took cues from overseas markets, and didn't necessarily reflect domestic political sentiment.

Nikkei ended the day up third day in a row 10,443 (up 1.6%)
Topix ended up for the first time in 4 days 939 (up 0.8%)
Gains were somewhat modest, though, contrary to most other major markets.

The Dow and the S&P rose to fresh 11-month highs, pushed higher by the release of positive Industrial Output and Housing Starts data which came on the heels of better-than-expected Retails Sales figures.

It was the third day in a row NY rallied.
In fact, the rest of the world has seen new highs all week (Europe & Asia pretty much across the board.)

WHY, THEN, ARE WE ONLY SEEING *MODEST* GAINS IN TOKYO??

One of the strongest factors has been (i.e. continues to be) the stronger yen.
This is a big deal because Japan is a major export-dependent country, ie exporter-related company products are affected by currency fluctuations.
Currently the currency (hahaha) is trading in the upper 90's (90.80~90.99) to the dollar. This is a big difference from the 94 and 95 range that most exporters calculate earnings reports by. Imagine dealing with billions and billions of 3-4 yen discrepancies!!!

There is also political skepticism. Like:
How will the new government (Democratic Party of Japan, PM: Hatoyama) implement its handful of new reforms?? How they will revise the stimulus package?? Most investors will give the government a 100-day (or 3-month) "honeymoon" period, so this will continue to be an ongoing concern.
And the new Finance Minister, Hirohisa Fujii, said that a currency intervention is not necessary at this time. Even though the yen is crazy strong. So Investors are thinking: Hmmm...

Going hand-in-hand with these worries is the fact that Financials was one of the worst performing sectors today.

BANK OF JAPAN
It didn’t come as much of a surprise that the Bank of Japan kept their overnight interest rates on hold at 0.1%, but they did upgrade their economic assessment saying that they are seeing “signs of recovery.”　That's the first time they've revised their assessment upwards since July.

The focus is now on whether or not the BOJ will continue its special aid designed to assist companies during this financial crisis (i.e. outright buying of commercial paper). Currently the deadline is set for the end of the calendar year.

That's it!

I ♥ MONEY.