financializer news A weblog highlighting financial topics making news in the international media.

employment data: On Friday, the key market gauge soared 317.25 points to finish above 20,000 for the first time since Dec. 1, 2015, according to The Japan Times. The Topix, which covers all first-section issues, closed 2.23 points, or 0.14 percent, lower at 1,609.97 after climbing 26.06 points Friday. The Nikkei 225 lost 6.46 points, or 0.03 percent, to end at 20,170.82. Both indexes fell for the first time in three trading days. In particular, export-oriented names such as automakers met with selling due to the dollar's fallback below 111 on the heels of weaker than expected U.S. employment data for May, released by the Labor Department on Friday, brokers said. The TSE opened weaker as selling to lock into gains outpaced buying following its surge in the past two sessions. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

ransomware: The male student apparently learned how to create it on his own, a source said, according to The Japan Times. The student, who lives in Takatsuki, admitted to creating the malware program on Jan. 6 and uploading it to an overseas website where he lured people into downloading it via social media, the sources said. The third-year junior high school student, who was arrested the same day, is suspected of combining free encryption programs to create ransomware, which makes computer files inaccessible unless a ransom is paid, the sources said. No financial losses from the malware have been reported yet, the sources said. The student told investigators that he wanted to become famous and that the ransomware had been downloaded more than 100 times. The ransomware was designed to infect computers after download and demand payment from the victim in Japanese via digital currency. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

policy uncertainty: Exports have strengthened, the bank said Sunday of the significant upgrade in its semiannual Global Economic Prospects report, according to The Japan Times. The pickup in capital spending has been supported by elevated corporate profits as well as preparations for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Growth has picked up in 2017, supported by a recovery in external demand. The world economy is projected to expand 2.7 percent this year, unchanged from the January forecast, but risks to the outlook remain tilted to the downside, the report says, citing increased trade protectionism and elevated economic policy uncertainty in a veiled reference to U.S. President Donald Trump's America First policy. But the planned consumption tax hike to 10 percent from 8 percent is likely to slow the growth rate to 0.6 percent in 2019. Referring to the Japanese economy, which posted estimated growth of 1.0 percent in 2016, the report says the Bank of Japan's accommodative monetary policy and the government's fiscal stimulus measures are likely to propel the economy to expand 1.0 percent again in 2018. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

supply chain: Blockchain, the underlying technology behind virtual currency bitcoin, is a digital system that allows parties to transact using individual codes for goods, according to The Japan Times. I see a lot of potential to create what I call a digital and transparent food system, said Wal-Mart food safety vice president Frank Yiannas. Working with IBM, retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is testing the technology system on mangos in the United States and pork in China. The technology enables different parties in the supply chain to share details such as the date an animal was slaughtered or the weather conditions at harvest time. The system also can also counter fraud and mistaken deliveries, champions of the technology say. Data can be stored through a photograph on a smartphone that is transmitted onto a dedicated platform. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

funds: The new commitments would take the total pool to 100 billion, though there's no guarantee that the parties will reach an agreement, they said, according to The Japan Times. The Vision Fund will charge a performance fee of 20 percent and a management fee of 0.5 percent to 1 percent, the people said. The telecoms and internet company is in talks with Canadian pension funds, sovereign wealth funds in Kuwait and Qatar and technology companies, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are ongoing. That compares with private equity firms, which typically charge 2 percent of the assets they oversee, plus 20 percent of profits. Representatives for Soft Bank and the Kuwaiti and Qatari wealth funds declined to comment. Soft Bank plans to hire about 50 people this year to help manage its investments, the people said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

management fee: The new commitments would take the total pool to 100 billion, though there's no guarantee that the parties will reach an agreement, they said, according to The Japan Times. The Vision Fund will charge a performance fee of 20 percent and a management fee of 0.5 percent to 1 percent, the people said. The company is in talks with Canadian pension funds, sovereign wealth funds in Kuwait and Qatar and technology companies, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are ongoing. That compares to private equity firms, which typically charge 2 percent of the assets they oversee, plus 20 percent of profits. Representatives for Soft Bank and the Qatari wealth fund declined to comment, while no one at the KIA was available to comment. Soft Bank plans to hire about 50 people this year to help manage its investments, the people said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

capitalization i: In secondary trading, they assessed that pricing showed the purchases weren't making the market less liquid, according to The Japan Times. The conclusion we are making is that the liquidity of the market is not really impacted, said Frank Benzimra, head of Asia equity strategy at Societe Generale in Hong Kong, who was part of a team that analyzed the ETF purchases in an April report. While the BOJ held about three-quarters of the assets of Japanese exchange-traded funds as of earlier this year, that still amounted to just 3 percent of the stock market's capitalization, according to Societe Generale estimates. I don't think there has been any real distortion in market prices, he also said. A smaller premium would make it less costly to issue stock, giving companies greater firepower for investment spending. ETF purchases were designed to complement the BOJ's broader monetary stimulus, by shrinking the equity risk premium, or the theoretical extra return investors demand from a stock compared with the so-called risk-free rate offered by government bonds. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

funds: The new commitments would take the total pool to 100 billion, though there's no guarantee that the parties will reach an agreement, they said, according to The Japan Times. The Vision Fund will charge a performance fee of 20 percent and a management fee of 0.5 percent to 1 percent, the people said. The telecoms and internet company is in talks with Canadian pension funds, sovereign wealth funds in Kuwait and Qatar and technology companies, the people said, asking not to be identified as the discussions are ongoing. That compares with private equity firms, which typically charge 2 percent of the assets they oversee, plus 20 percent of profits. Representatives for Soft Bank and the Kuwaiti and Qatari wealth funds declined to comment. Soft Bank plans to hire about 50 people this year to help manage its investments, the people said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

jobs data: Favorable U.S. manufacturing and private-sector jobs data helped lift the dollar against the yen, while stronger than expected Japanese industrial output and corporate investment data raised confidence in the plodding recovery of the world's third-largest economy, according to The Japan Times. The Nikkei was unable to reach 20,000 due to a series of sluggish U.S. economic data, but the latest data provided relief to investors over prospects for the economy, said Masahiro Ichikawa, senior strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management Co. The benchmark average hit the threshold for the first time in 18 months on Friday as a stream of upbeat economic data from both countries sparked buying by overseas investors, who had stayed away from the market following reports over Trump's alleged links to Russia. Also contributing to the rise in stocks is underlying optimism about Japan's corporate profits, given their healthy earnings for the business year ended in March and positive prospects for this year, brokers said. According to a survey by Sumitomo Mitsui Asset Management, combined pretax profits at 221 major Japanese nonfinancial companies are projected to surge 16.4 percent compared with the previous fiscal year. As many firms have set their dollar-yen exchange rate assumptions at around the 110 level, their earnings for this fiscal year would not be so negative, considering the current level around 111, Ichikawa said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

business investment: Pretax profits at businesses covered in the poll surged 26.6 percent from a year earlier to 20.13 trillion, the highest on record for the January-March period, according to The Japan Times. Capital spending data has been closely watched as the government of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is encouraging companies to step up investment and raise wages to achieve economic growth driven more by domestic demand. Business investment by all non-financial sectors for purposes such as building plants and introducing equipment stood at 14.29 trillion 129 billion marking the second straight quarterly gain and the highest since the January-March quarter of 2008, shortly before the start of the global financial crisis. Japan's economy has been lifted by robust exports to Asia, with companies stepping up output. The latest figures reflects that the economy is on a moderate recovery path, a ministry official said. A recovery in crude oil prices also helped businesses that trade in resources. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

market gauge: On Wednesday, the key market gauge fell 27.28 points, according to The Japan Times. The Topix index of all first-section issues ended up 17.77 points, or 1.13 percent, at 1,586.14, after losing 4.30 points the previous day. The 225-issue Nikkei stock average rose 209.46 points, or 1.07 percent, to finish at 19,860.03. Tokyo stocks attracted hefty purchases after Finance Ministry data, released just before the opening bell, showed that capital spending by Japanese nonfinancial firms in the first quarter of this year rose 4.5 percent from a year before, brokers said. The market's advance was also attributed to buying on dips after the Nikkei average fell for four straight sessions through Wednesday, brokers said. The growth was better than a median forecast of a 4.0 percent increase in a Jiji Press poll of five economic research institutes. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

government officials: Oleg Kozhemyako in the Sakhalin region, according to The Japan Times. There are many promising sectors where we can cooperate such as fisheries, seafood processing and agriculture, the governor responded. If both Japanese and Russians imagine that they will engage in economic projects together, it will enhance mutual understanding and build mutual trust, Eiichi Hasegawa, a special adviser to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, said at a meeting with Sakhalin Gov. We are ready to push for cooperation. Hasegawa, a former top bureaucrat with the trade ministry, headed a group of nearly 30 government officials and public- and private-sector experts in the latest trip to the region. Sakhalin administers the contested Northern Territories, which are known as the Southern Kurils in Russia. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

market gauge: On Tuesday, the key market gauge fell 4.72 points, according to The Japan Times. The Topix index of all first-section issues closed down 4.30 points, or 0.27 percent, at 1,568.37, after climbing 2.46 points the previous day. The 225-issue Nikkei average shed 27.28 points, or 0.14 percent, to end at 19,650.57. Selling outpaced buying after an overnight fall in U.S. equities, caused in part by the announcement on Tuesday of the U.S. Conference Board's consumer confidence index for May, which turned out weaker than expected, brokers said. The Tokyo market lacked new factors to trade on after Japan's earnings reporting season was over, said Yoshihiko Tabei, chief analyst at Naito Securities. Investors retreated to the sidelines prior to the release on Friday of closely watched U.S. government jobs data for May, brokers said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

time toshiba: At this point, completion of the auditing is expected to take some more time Toshiba recognizes that it will not have the lead time required to prepare and provide the business report for the June 28 ordinary shareholders meeting, Toshiba said in a statement on Wednesday, according to The Japan Times. The company expresses its sincere apologies to its shareholders, investors and all other stakeholders for any concerns or inconvenience caused by this situation, it added. Struggling to win approval for its results from its auditor, the embattled conglomerate is already at the brink of stock market delisting, and the delay could affect the Tokyo Stock Exchange's review of Toshiba's qualifications for remaining on the bourse. Toshiba said it will continue to work with its auditor to submit the securities report, which must come with an audit opinion. Toshiba also said it hopes to explain the outlook for the results for the year ending March 2017 at a future extraordinary shareholders meeting with an auditor approval. June 30 is the deadline for submitting its full-year financial statements including an earnings report. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

ito: Core consumer prices rose 0.3 percent in April, the government reported last week, well below the BOJ's 2 percent goal, according to The Japan Times. Ito said he disagreed with former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, who said last week during a visit to Tokyo that if Japan continues to struggle to generate inflation, more explicit coordination of monetary and fiscal policy could be the most promising option. The tight labor market is bringing long-awaited pay increases to some workers, but the practice of setting wages based on looking at past price trends needs to be abandoned to achieve the pay rises needed for sustainable inflation, said Ito, who is considered a candidate to be the next head of the Bank of Japan. Ito said the power of monetary policy is fading and that further government stimulus could risk loosening fiscal discipline. An index of profitable companies that reward workers well could be created to attract investors to these businesses, including the Government Pension Investment Fund, he said. Instead, Japan should consider a big, one-time jump in the minimum wage, as well as taxing cash-hoarding companies to prompt them to raise wages. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

market gauge: On Friday, the key market gauge lost 126.29 points, according to The Japan Times. On the other hand, the Topix, which includes all first-section issues, closed up 0.79 point, or 0.05 percent, at 1,570.21, after falling 9.00 points the previous trading day. The Nikkei 225 average shed 4.27 points, or 0.02 percent, to end at 19,682.57. Buying outpaced selling for most of the day, but the market's topside was capped by a wait-and-see mood ahead of the U.S. government's announcement of closely watched job data scheduled for Friday, brokers said. Trading was quiet in the absence of foreign investors, said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities Co. Due to the lack of vigor, the Nikkei average gave up its early gains and sank into negative territory just before the day's closing, according to the brokers. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

quarter-ending months: Having sold a record amount of overseas bonds in April, as well as domestic debt, Japanese investors have mostly held off reinvesting the proceeds, according to The Japan Times. Excess reserves at the Bank of Japan from the country's financial institutions, subject to a 0.1 percent charge, reached the highest in 13 months in April. Cash. A redemption of government bonds in June is likely to add to this cash pile, as quarter-ending months typically see four-to-five times more money returned. A lack of decisive direction in both currency and bond markets, and lingering concerns of geopolitical risks and U.S. political turmoil have led to a wait-and-hold stance. Yet despite the abundance of cash at hand, there is no sense of urgency among Japan's investors to put the money to work. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

suu kyi: China is offering economic and political support and a relationship free of the human rights concerns straining Myanmar's ties elsewhere, according to The Japan Times. Myanmar, also known as Burma, was a foreign policy success for President Barack Obama. The opposite is happening The new government is failing to attract Western investment and Beijing is on a charm offensive. He helped coax its powerful generals into ceding power by normalizing diplomatic relations and rolling back years of economic penalties, paving the way for Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi to take power after winning elections. She also has struggled to produce economic growth, hobbled by a lack of control over the nation's still powerful military and a rigid management style. Suu Kyi's historic struggle for democracy still evokes deep respect in Washington and Europe, but running a civilian government for the past 14 months has exposed her inability to bring peace to a country riven by ethnic conflict. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

yen trades: By going through a company providing payment terminal services to shops, we have the possibility of increasing its use at one stroke, according to The Japan Times. It's easier than talking to lots of individual retailers. We're holding discussions with a retail-related company, Genki Oda, BITPoint's president, said in a recent interview. BITPoint is joining a flurry of companies embracing regulations, enacted in Japan last month, that recognize digital currencies as a form of payment. Bic Camera, one of the country's biggest electronics retailers, began accepting bitcoin at two stores in Tokyo last month. That has helped to make yen trades one of the world's largest transaction pools, exceeding China's pole position at the end of 2016, according to Oda. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

shimane prefecture: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga told an emergency news conference early Monday that the missile, launched at around 5 40 a.m., is believed to have landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles 370 km from its coast, into the Sea of Japan, according to The Japan Times. Suga said the missile was estimated to have landed some 300 km off Shimane Prefecture's Oki Islands. The U.S. Pacific Command said in a statement later the same day that it had detected the launch of a short-range ballistic missile near the eastern coastal city of Wonsan, adding that it had tracked the missile for six minutes until it landed in the Sea of Japan. He said there were no reports of damage to planes or vessels in the area, adding that Japan filed a protest with North Korea, using the strongest wording possible to condemn the move. A top North Korean official told the BBC in April that the country will continue to test missiles despite international condemnation and growing military tensions with the U.S. and its allies. The firing of the ballistic missile . . . clearly violates resolutions adopted by the United Nations Security Council, Suga said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

bunkyo ward: Last year alone, the Metropolitan Police Department's lost and found center in Bunkyo Ward tried to reunite as many as 10 urns with their owners, according to The Japan Times. In every case, relatives of the deceased refused to come and collect them. And yet this should perhaps not surprise you urns are handed in to lost and found centers more regularly than you might think. Umbrellas are one of the most common items that accumulate at the center, so much so that a 660-square-meter room has been dedicated to storing them in the basement. Okubo says that roughly 3,000 umbrellas are found in Tokyo on a typical rainy day. The room wasn't quite full as of late April but Shoji Okubo, head of the center, says that this situation will change once the rainy season starts in June. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

currency-denominated assets: Much of the profit will go to state coffers, according to The Japan Times. The central bank will officially announce its earnings for the year by the end of the month. Surplus, the corporate equivalent of net profit, expanded to some 500 billion in fiscal 2016 ended in March, from 441 billion the previous year, the sources said. In the April-September fiscal first half, the BOJ posted a deficit, or net loss, after getting weighed down by foreign-exchange losses incurred from its holdings of foreign currency-denominated assets when the yen rose. The BOJ's total assets at the end of March, much of which were JGBs, grew to a record high of some 490 trillion, up from 405 trillion a year ago, the sources said. The BOJ managed to more than erase the loss for the full year because the appreciation was corrected in the second half. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

shinzo abe: His reactionary vision for the future is caught in a pre-1945 time warp, drawing on the values that prevailed in Imperial Japan that are out of touch with contemporary Japan, according to The Japan Times. There is nothing beautiful or inspiring about his glowering ideological agenda. Suddenly Utsukushii Nihon e Toward a beautiful Japan escaped my lips, prompting my co-pilot to chide, So you are finally coming around to Abe's point of view Toward a Beautiful Country is the title of the book the current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, wrote in 2006 revised in 2013 so my choice of phrasing was deliberate, juxtaposing ethereal Japan with Abe's dark space. Like many other Japanese politicians, Abe's seat in the Diet, and political views, are inherited. Kishi had been released from jail in 1948, a Class A war crimes suspect, but in one of Japan's most remarkable political comebacks, less than a decade later he was leading Japan, head of a party that Japan's wartime adversary helped create. His father, Shintaro Abe, was foreign minister 1982-87 under one of Japan's most hawkish premiers, Yasuhiro Nakasone, and his grandfather was Prime Minister Nobusuke Kishi 1957-1960 . Kishi took the reins of power in a backroom deal in the recently established Liberal Democratic Party following the merger of two conservative parties in 1955 that the CIA helped fund into the 1970s. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

british markets: On Thursday, the key market gauge gained 70.15 points, according to The Japan Times. The Topix, which covers all first-section issues, closed down 9.00 points, or 0.57 percent, at 1,569.42, after climbing 3.31 points the previous day. The Nikkei 225 shed 126.29 points, or 0.64 percent, to end at 19,686.84. Purchases by overseas investors, who have a major presence in the Tokyo market, were held in check, as the U.S. and British markets will be closed on Monday for national holidays, brokers said. Stocks came under pressure from selling to lock in profits after their recent rises, a bank-affiliated securities firm official said. But the downside for Tokyo stocks was limited following the strength of the U.S. market, where the tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index hit a record closing high Thursday, they said. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

consumer spending: The labor market is tight and business confidence is strong, according to The Japan Times. But consumer spending remains tepid and the Bank of Japan has struggled to lift inflation despite years of aggressive monetary easing. The country's prospects have been improving on the back of strong exports, with investments linked to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics also giving the economy a shot in the arm. After stripping out the volatile cost of fresh food, the inflation rate came in at 0.3 percent, the fourth consecutive monthly rise after a 0.2 percent increase in both March and February and a 0.1 percent rise in January. Friday's figures are still far from the Bank of Japan's 2.0 percent inflation target seen as crucial to conquering the nation's long struggle to slay deflation, blamed for holding back the once-booming economy. Excluding fresh food and energy, however, prices stayed flat, following a 0.1 percent fall in March and 0.1 percent rise in February, according to the internal affairs ministry. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.

dot-com boom: My life is important, but protecting the P&L is more important, according to The Japan Times. It was that kind of dedication that propelled Yamada from a childhood in regional Japan to a prestigious place studying computer science at the University of California at Berkeley right at the height of the dot-com boom. We had an option to leave, but we couldn't leave the position at the time, the 39-year-old former Goldman Sachs Group quant said, recalling the March 2011 quake and hours of aftershocks that he and some trader colleagues braved from the bank's offices on the 48th floor. He went on to join Goldman Sachs as a programmer before switching to the trading floor, using his math skills to value esoteric derivatives. That all changed in 2015, when he made two surprising moves. Until then, Yamada's career followed a standard trajectory for the financial industry's elite. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.