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Technology Stocks : Softbank Group Corp -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kai_kai who wrote (3440)	1/21/2000 4:54:00 PM
From: swisstrader	Respond to of 6020

Interesting article... Markets : The Coming Week in Asia The Coming Week in Asia: Brokers Bask in Retail Profits By Kaya Laterman Japan Correspondent 1/21/00 4:16 PM ET TOKYO -- The sun would be streaming through the glass door of the Nikko Securities branch office in Tokyo's bustling Shinjuku ward were it not for the full-length, handmade poster blocking the way. "Why put your bonus in a low-return bank or postal account? Consider stocks! Stocks! Stocks!" it fairly screams in scribbled red ink to the afternoon stumble of shoppers and touts and kids calling each other on Pokemon-adorned cell phones. It's a little odd that as large a firm as Nikko would resort to a handwritten poster when thousands of yen are spent on advertising each year. The message is quite clear, however. Stock investment isn't just what the brokerage suggests; it's the branch manager's personal recommendation. Customers seem to be listening, and the brokers are reaping the benefits. Japan's three major brokerage firms, which will announce pretax profits for the October-December period on Friday, are expecting to see a significant rise in profits, thanks to a jump in retail participation amid a surging stock market. The deregulation of commission fees in October initially had some players worried that it would cut into profits. Instead, customers flocked to brokers as financial products and services got cheaper. Both Daiwa Securities and Nikko Securities are looking to pull in at least 50 billion yen ($476 million) in pretax profits, while Nomura Securities is expecting 80 billion yen, according to local reports. Share prices are already reflecting the market's excitement. Nomura is up nearly 30% from the start of the year, while Daiwa has risen 9.4% and Nikko 13.5%. With the Nikkei 225 stock average rising 37% last year and over-the-counter shares up 244%, individual investors are back with force. They're gobbling up shares through brokers, online trading or through one of the newly created mutual funds, some of which touted returns of more than 200% last year. Eight new funds are due to start up by the end of February, and experts say the number will only increase from there. "As long as the equity market holds up, Japanese brokers are going to do fine. At the rate we're going, the average trading volume for 2000 will surpass 1999," says David Richards, analyst at Goldman Sachs. "It also helps that individual investors are paying 65 to 70 basis points higher for securities than institutional customers." (Goldman rates Nomura and Nikko as market perform and Daiwa as market outperform.) One immediate concern for stocks in the coming week will be the course of the yen against the U.S. dollar in the wake of this Saturday's Group of Seven meeting of finance ministers and central bankers in Tokyo. Japanese officials may sound like a broken record when they say that a strong yen is undesirable for the Japanese economy, but in part, they are right. A strong yen makes Honda (HMC:NYSE - news) Civics much more expensive to sell overseas, thus cutting into the profits of the automaker, which relies heavily on overseas sales to survive. It also lowers the price of foreign-made goods in Japan, putting the pinch on domestic producers. A weaker yen does the opposite and could, officials here think, be the extra nudge Japan needs to make its recovery sustainable. Japan has been pressing it's G7 counterparts to issue a statement after the meeting about the threat of a strong yen to the domestic economy. Tokyo has been rife with reports that the language used in the communique will be stronger than what followed the September G7 meeting. But there's a strong suggestion that the "sources" quoted in these articles have an interest in building expectations of a strong statement, thus forcing the G7's hand. It's a tactic that usually doesn't work. Most observers believe that a statement similar to the last G7 communique, expressing members' "concern" over a strong yen, will prevail. It will come as a mild disappointment for some blue chips, such as Sony (SNE:NYSE ADR - news) and Toyota (TM:NYSE ADR - news), since the greenback will likely inch down toward 103 yen. Just like the Shinjuku branch manager of Nikko Securities, Japanese officials may want to write out their own communique about the need for a weak yen -- by hand, that is, in red ink.

To: kai_kai who wrote (3440)	1/21/2000 5:05:00 PM
From: LOGAN12	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6020

The positives would have existed if you were long VERT. linda

To: kai_kai who wrote (3440)	1/21/2000 6:00:00 PM
From: Edwin S. Fujinaka	Respond to of 6020

I don't think that Softbank has a position in VERT at this time. MSFT is only taking a very small position (around 2%) so the impact on MSFT will be pretty small. Don't forget, as a potential writer of those fortune cookie predictions, I was the first person to predict that Softbank was going to buy Microsoft <G>. Well, maybe not right away. Gates and Son are already well acquainted and I predict that the Softbank/Microsoft merger will create the first billion dollar company. The only question is who will buy who (or is that whom?). Well, maybe that's not the only question...