Sayonara, Softbank (and take that mangy Yay-hoo with you!!):
nytimes.com
September 17, 2000
Tokyo Stocks Stung by Nasdaq
By REUTERS
Filed at 10:22 p.m. ET
TOKYO (Reuters) - Tokyo stocks sank in Monday morning trade, with high-tech shares in particular dragged down by a two percent fall in the U.S. Nasdaq composite index at the end of last week.
The benchmark Nikkei average fell 204.49 points or 1.26 percent to 16,008.79 by midday. The broader TOPIX index fell 9.57 points or 0.65 percent to 1,474.02.
Traders said indices were also weighed down by last-minute efforts by institutional investors to take profits and pad their accounts ahead of next week's first-half book closings.
``The market's consensus is that profit-taking for earnings purposes by institutional investors is past its peak, but there is still some last-minute selling going on before book closings,'' said Masaru Yamano, equities general manager at Tsubasa Securities.
Major chip and electronics makers NEC Corp, Fujitsu Ltd, and Toshiba Corp tracked losses in their U.S. counterparts.
A weaker Nasdaq often prompts U.S. investors to dump their Japanese shareholdings, many of which are concentrated in the high-tech sector, to pay for losses incurred at home.
NEC Corp, the world's second largest chipmaker, fell 3.18 percent to 2,740 yen. Fujitsu Ltd fell 2.78 percent to 2,800 yen and Toshiba fell 2.56 percent to 989 yen.
Internet investor Softbank Corp, which is heavily invested in several Nasdaq-listed Internet firms, plunged 12.02 percent to 10,100 yen.
Market players said it was also sold on media reports it would sell part of its stake in Sky Perfect Communications Inc, a digital satellite television broadcasting firm.
The Nihon Keizai Shimbun said Softbank, which owns a 9.9 percent stake in Sky Perfect, would sell 45,000 of its 182,000 shares when Sky Perfect lists on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market in late October.
One trader said it gave the impression Softbank's cash position was still dire, although the Nihon Keizai report said the move reflected Softbank's shift of interest to Internet-based communications from satellite broadcasting.
Softbank declined to comment. |
