Asia's biggest stock exchange finished its final day of trading for the year yesterday on a high note, with stocks rallying to cap a year, during which the benchmark gained 7.6 percent on hopes Japan's economy is on a rebound.
Tokyo Stock Exchange shares closed higher across a broad range of sectors, including banking, retail and export-related issues, as traders and guests clapped hands rhythmically to close the year according to Japanese tradition after a half-day session. The yen was up against the US dollar.
PHOTO: AFP
The Nikkei Stock Average was up 107.20 points, or 0.94 percent, closing the year at 11,488.76 points -- the best finish for the blue-chip index since July 13, when it closed at 11,608.62 points. On Wednesday, the Nikkei lost 42.57 points, or 0.37 percent.
The dollar bought ?103.73 at 3pm yesterday, up ?0.51 from late Wednesday in Tokyo but below the ?103.80 it bought in New York later that day.
On the stock market, investors bought on expectations of a global economic recovery next year.
Technology issues Advantest Corp and Canon Inc and automakers Toyota Motor Corp and Honda Motor Co closed higher. Banks UFJ Holdings Inc and Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group Inc also rose, as did major retailer Ito-Yokado Co, as well as real estate Mitsui Fudosan Co.
Many market analysts expect the Nikkei index to rise gradually toward the latter half of next year as global economies recover and production and sales at Japan's major exporters begin to rise.
US Morgan Stanley equities strategist Naoki Kamiyama said if the market factors in the outlook for an end to deflation and a worldwide cyclical economic recovery, the Nikkei "will rise toward 13,000 toward the end of 2005."
Kamiyama said the next year will be the final year of Japan's structural reforms.
Some analysts say the danger of deflation -- or continually falling prices that brings down wages and profits that have plagued Japan for years -- may be over next year. Japan's central bank has kept interest rates virtually at zero for the past three years to help fight deflation.
This year, strong market hopes for an end to deflation helped the Nikkei index climb nearly 17 percent from a year-low of 10,365.40 reached on Feb. 10 to a year-high of 12,163.89 on April 26, but those hopes then gave way to the reality of a slow slide in prices.
For the whole year, the Nikkei gained 7.6 percent from the end of last year on signs the world's second-largest economy has been on the rebound for the last two years thanks to robust exports, especially to China and other Asian countries.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS