Japanese Accelerated Perf Fund Share Discussion Threads

[hectorp] 24/10/2008 08:36

I read yesterday that JApan Small cos are very good value, is this the case ..
I know of BGS shin nippon,
any other JAp small co Trusts?

[supermum] 13/10/2008 09:38

so where now for Japan? half the ports in the far east seem to be full of ships with lots of cargo and no-one to buy...

[briarberry] 12/9/2008 16:34

Sept. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's economy shrank 3 percent last quarter, the steepest contraction since 2001, as companies and households cut spending and exports fell.

Gross domestic product for the three months ended June 30 shrank more than the annualized 2.4 percent initially estimated, the Cabinet Office said in Tokyo today. Economists expect the slowdown to continue into next year as the U.S. slowdown spreads to Asia, where Japan ships half its exports.

[briarberry] 05/9/2008 17:17

Sept. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese businesses cut investment in the second quarter amid record oil and commodity prices and a global slowdown that damped demand for the country's exports.

Capital spending excluding software fell 7.6 percent in the three months ended June 30, a fifth straight quarterly decline, the Ministry of Finance said today in Tokyo. Profits fell 5.2 percent. The government will use today's report to revise its gross domestic product figures on Sept. 12.

[briarberry] 28/8/2008 18:13

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- The list of Japanese real estate companies filing for bankruptcy will grow this year as banks cut lending, said Takeo Higuchi, chairman of Daiwa House Industry Co., Japan's second-biggest home builder by market value.

Developers and construction companies dominated the ranks of failures in July, accounting for a third of 1,131 bankruptcies in the month, the largest number since April 2005.

Bad loan losses at Japan's 11 larger banks, including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc., surged 62 percent to 234.1 billion yen in the three months ended June 30 from the year earlier period, Toshimitsu Motegi, Japan's Financial Services Minister, said at press briefing on Aug. 15.

[briarberry] 26/8/2008 17:36

Aug. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese companies are increasing overseas acquisitions, using their cash-hoards to snap up assets beaten down by the global credit crisis and economic slowdown.

The value of foreign purchases by Japanese companies this year has already topped 2007's total by 91 percent, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That's the biggest gain among the world's 10 largest markets and contrasts with fewer deals in the U.S. and U.K., where credit is drying up after the subprime rout.

Japanese companies have cash equal to 11 percent of their assets, the second-highest amount after China among the world's 10 biggest equity markets, according to Bloomberg data.

[briarberry] 10/7/2008 18:25

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's wholesale inflation rate rose to a 27-year high in June as companies raised prices to counter record oil and commodity costs.

Producer prices climbed 5.6 percent from a year earlier, after a revised 4.8 percent gain in May, the Bank of Japan said in Tokyo today. The median estimate of 36 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News was for 5.3 percent.

Oil, wheat and soybean costs have almost doubled in the past year, forcing companies to charge more and fanning the fastest consumer-price inflation in a decade. Costs are gaining faster than firms can raise prices, prompting businesses to predict the first profit decline in seven years, a report last week showed.

[briarberry] 16/6/2008 10:37

June 16 (Bloomberg) -- Glassware and porcelain sales shot up more than 30 percent last month at the downtown Tokyo housewares store Kenji Wako manages. ``People wanted to get a bargain before prices went up,'' he says.

Japan, a nation that has seen mostly falling prices for years, is experiencing something it isn't used to: a ``buy now'' psychology that seems to be taking hold among consumers as record oil and food costs fuel inflation expectations.

A scourge that is threatening growth from Europe to China, inflation might be exactly what Japan needs. The prospect of higher prices may lift the economy by drawing out some of the 1,500 trillion yen ($14 trillion) Japanese households have squirreled away. Half sits in savings accounts paying almost no interest. Some is even stuffed under mattresses.

``Mr. and Mrs. Watanabe are slowly opening their purses. Why? One word: inflation,'' says Jesper Koll, director of Tantallon Research Japan, a Singapore-based hedge fund. ``The futon money is coming out.''

[briarberry] 11/6/2008 16:01

June 11 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's wholesale prices rose at the fastest pace in 27 years, signaling soaring energy costs may erode corporate profits and bring an end to the economy's longest postwar expansion.

Producer-price inflation accelerated to 4.7 percent in May from 3.9 percent in April, the Bank of Japan said in Tokyo today. The current-account surplus shrank 30 percent in April as record oil costs added to the nation's import bill.

Profits fell 17.5 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier, the steepest decline since the most recent recession in 2001, a report showed last week. The Cabinet Office this week said growth in the world's second-largest economy has probably peaked, and companies including Nissan Motor Co. and Advantest Corp. expect conditions to worsen.

[haveagoodday] 30/5/2008 21:30

From Times Online
May 28, 2008

Japan: the land of the rising return?
David Budworth
Given the turbulence in the markets over recent months you might not have noticed that the Japanese stock market has been doing rather well. Since hitting a low of 11,788 in mid-March the Nikkei 225 index of Japan's leading companies has leapt 16 per cent, making it one of the top performing markets worldwide.

Two months is, of course, a very short time frame on which to base investment decisions. But it is worth taking note, as the burst in performance has coincided with a new found optimism in Japan amongst fund managers.

Many think that the Japanese market, which has been in the doldrums for most of the past decade, could finally be turning a corner. Paul Chesson, head of Japanese equities at Invesco Perpetual, a fund manager, says: "We still believe that the stock market as a whole will be tough going over the next year. However, there are now more shares in the market where I believe we can make double-digit returns over the next year than we have been able to find for some time."

Other fund managers, like Stephen Harker at SG Asset Management, say that Japanese equities are the most attractively valued for 25 years. More than half of Japanese companies trade at less than book value - the accounting value of their assets - according to Goldman Sachs, an investment bank.

Dividend yields are also rising, with Japanese equities now yielding more than bonds. According to Hargreaves Lansdown, a financial adviser, this has only happened twice before - in 1998 and 2003. Both times, this was followed by a rally in the market.

After over a decade of falling prices the Japanese economy also appears to have turned its back on deflation, which has made it difficult for companies to raise prices and discouraged the Japanese consumer from spending money. Japan's nationwide consumer price index (CPI) rose 1.2 percent in March from a year earlier, the biggest rise since March 1998. Although this was largely down to rising energy prices, economists say that there are encouraging signs that inflation is beginning to appear in the broader economy.

Seasoned investors will, quite rightly, say that they have heard such talk before. There have been many false dawns in the land of the rising sun that have come to nothing.

But the underlying factors, this time around, make Japan looks a more compelling investment than it has for many years. The next 12 months look likely to to remain tough as the credit crisis works itself out. But if you are prepared to hold for the long-term now looks like a good time to invest.

[briarberry] 20/5/2008 15:54

May 20 (Bloomberg) -- The Bank of Japan kept interest rates on hold at the first meeting after slashing its growth estimate and shelving a two-year policy of seeking higher borrowing costs.

Governor Masaaki Shirakawa and his six colleagues unanimously voted to leave the overnight lending rate at 0.5 percent in the quickest decision in three years, the central bank said in Tokyo. The rate is the lowest among major economies.

The world's second-largest economy is slowing, the central bank said in its monthly report released after the meeting. At a news briefing today, Shirakawa will probably reiterate that the global slowdown, financial-market turmoil and rising commodities costs are among the biggest risks for Japan's economy.

[briarberry] 19/5/2008 15:52

Nippon Steel last month said higher raw material costs would slash annual profit by 41 percent


May 19 (Bloomberg) -- Nippon Steel Corp., the world's second-biggest maker of the alloy, will raise contract steel prices to a record for Toyota Motor Corp. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., said a person close to the negotiations.

Prices will increase by between 25,000 yen ($240) and 30,000 yen a metric ton for Toyota and by almost 30,000 yen a ton for Mitsubishi Heavy, Japan's largest heavy machinery maker, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the talks were private.

Nippon Steel last month said higher raw material costs would slash annual profit by 41 percent, putting pressure on the company to increase prices. Average product prices were 80,200 yen a ton in the three months ended March 31, according to Nippon Steel's earnings report.

[briarberry] 15/5/2008 10:12

Japan March Machinery Orders Drop More Than Expected

May 15 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese machinery orders fell more than economists expected in March as a global slowdown and waning profits dissuaded companies from investing in factories and equipment.

Equipment orders, which signal capital spending in the next three to six months, declined 8.3 percent from February, when they fell 12.7 percent, the Cabinet Office said today in Tokyo. The median estimate of 33 economists was for a 5.1 percent drop.

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Japan Mutual Funds See 70 Billion-Yen Net Outflow

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- The biggest Japanese mutual funds had a net outflow of 70 billion yen ($664.6 million) in April as individuals stayed away because of market volatility, Nikkei English News reported, without saying where it obtained the information.

The top 10 firms, including Nomura Asset Management Co., Daiwa Asset Management Co. and Nikko Asset Management Co., dominate the market with more than a 70 percent share, the news service said. More money flowed out of all investment trusts than flowed in, marking the first net outflow for the market since July 2003, Nikkei said.

[briarberry] 14/5/2008 16:22

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's wholesale prices rose at close to the fastest pace in almost three decades in April, prompting companies to pass higher costs onto clients or absorb them by sacrificing profits.

Producer prices climbed 3.7 percent from a year earlier, after a 3.9 percent gain in March, the Bank of Japan said in Tokyo today.

The central bank's overseas commodity index of 16 raw materials including crude oil, nonferrous metal and wheat, soared 45.4 percent in April from a year earlier.

[briarberry] 14/5/2008 16:22

May 14 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's current-account surplus narrowed for the first time in three months in March as export growth slowed and oil costs pushed the import bill to a record.

The surplus shrank 12.3 percent to 2.88 trillion yen ($27.5 billion) from a year earlier, the Ministry of Finance said in Tokyo today.

Shipments to China and other emerging economies may fail to make up for slower demand in the U.S., Japan's largest market. Businesses are being squeezed by record costs of imported oil and commodities. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. says annual profit at Japanese companies will fall for the first time in seven years.

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[briarberry] 08/5/2008 20:04

Japanese carmaker Toyota has posted a 28% fall in profit for the first three months of 2008, and predicted its first annual profit fall in seven years.

It blamed falling demand in the US, and a stronger yen, which makes Japanese exports more expensive.

Net income dropped to 316.8bn yen ($3bn; £1.6bn) in the quarter to March, down from 440bn yen a year ago.

[briarberry] 30/4/2008 15:46

April 30 (Bloomberg) -- The Bank of Japan cut its economic growth forecast and predicted inflation would accelerate in a report that omitted a reference to raising interest rates for the first time in two years.

The world's second-largest economy will grow 1.5 percent in the year ending March 31, less than an October estimate of 2.1 percent, the central bank said in its semi-annual outlook today.

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April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's factory production fell at the fastest pace in at least five years in March as the global slowdown prompted Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. to make fewer cars at home.

Companies cut output 3.1 percent from February, when it rose 1.6 percent to a record, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo. The decline was almost four times steeper than the 0.8 percent median estimate of 33 economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

[briarberry] 28/4/2008 15:39

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Japan's retail sales rose in March as households paid more for gasoline and food, leaving them less to spend on clothing and furniture.

Sales climbed 1.1 percent from a year earlier, the Trade Ministry said today in Tokyo.

Consumer confidence is near a five-year low as food and fuel prices drive inflation to the highest in a decade. The Bank of Japan lowered its assessment of the world's second-largest economy this month because record oil and raw-materials costs are squeezing companies and consumers.

``The gain in retail sales is a reflection of rising costs of fuel, not strong consumer spending,'' said Mamoru Yamazaki, chief Japan economist at RBS Securities Japan Ltd. in Tokyo. ``Consumption doesn't have momentum and downward risks are increasing as inflation outpaces wage growth.''