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Strategies & Market Trends : MDA - Market Direction Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: pater tenebrarum who wrote (33937)	11/22/1999 4:01:00 PM
From: Don Green	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 99985

Top 15 Japan Banks Expect To Post Pretax Profit In FY99 Tuesday, November 23, 1999 TOKYO (Nikkei)--Fifteen of Japan's 17 leading banks -- the exceptions being Yasuda Trust & Banking Co. (8404) and Nippon Trust Bank Ltd. (8405) -- are projecting a return to profitability on a pretax basis for the current fiscal 1999 year. The nation's major banks have been weighed down by massive write-offs of problem loans in the past several years, but they are now confident they can stop the flow of red ink with growth in net interest income and cost-reduction efforts. They also expect to post gains on sales of portfolio shares. Dai-Ichi Kangyo Bank (8311) is expected to post its first pretax profit in four years, with the other eight city banks likely to swing to pretax profitability for the first time in three years. Even so, the major banks are now poised to book far higher extraordinary losses to dispose of problem loans than they originally planned for the fiscal year, due to rising corporate bankruptcies and falling land prices, among other factors. The possibility also remains that even more write-offs will be required, depending on the course of the economy. Thirteen of the 17 banks were hit with year-on-year declines in profit from their core banking operations in the six months ended Sept. 30, in large part because of a big drop in bond-trading profits. Loan write-offs increased, but the banks offset the cost with gains on sales of shares, buoyed by a rebound in the stock market.