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Strategies & Market Trends : Galapagos Islands -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: X Y Zebra who wrote (3572)	9/30/2002 9:15:49 PM
From: X Y Zebra	Respond to of 57110

Tankan Index eh ? They may rename it the Tankage Index from now on.... edit: ____________________________________ oh lookie... LOL Nasdaq Japan turns into Hercules? Little more meets the eye than a wishful name change By Bill Clifford, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 8:36 AM ET Sep 30, 2002 TOKYO (CBS.MW) -- The U.S. Nasdaq Stock Market decided several weeks ago it was not up to the Herculean challenge of making Nasdaq Japan a profitable part of a planned 24-hour global exchange and announced it would quit the venture. But its erstwhile partner, Japan's Osaka Securities Exchange, is pressing ahead amid a vicious bear market, and on Monday it unveiled a new name for the fledgling bourse for start-up companies: Hercules. What's in a name? The OSE picked the Greek mythological hero from among 452 names it had solicited from the public. Hercules reflects the hope that it can "list energetic and powerful companies that will support the Japanese economy in the 21st century," the OSE said. But in the last three months, fewer than 20 companies have gone public on Japan's three stock markets for start-ups -- the Jasdaq over-the-counter market, Nasdaq Japan and the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market. That paltry figure is one-third the number of listings during the July-Sept. quarter a year ago. It's possible that Japan will see fewer than 100 initial public offerings this year, which would mark a three-year low for IPOs. The drop reflects plunging stock prices and the fear that insufficient funds would be raised if an IPO were to flop. Although the average opening price of a newly listed company's stock jumped 63 percent above given IPO prices in the six months through June, the average opening price rose 11 percent in July and declined 9 percent in August. 98-pound weakling Nasdaq Japan listed 98 companies, including Starbucks Japan (SBUX), from its June 2000 launch until the U.S. Nasdaq dropped the bomb in mid-August that it would withdraw by October. The joint venture had targeted more than twice that many listed firms for its first two years of operation. It looks more like a weakling than Hercules in comparison with the Jasdaq OTC market, which boasts some 900 companies. Since the announcement, five companies -- SystemPro, BB Net, Softfront, NetVillage and Digital Arts -- have joined Nasdaq Japan's tentatively renamed successor, the Nippon New Market. Hercules takes over on Dec. 16, the OSE said in a statement. But four, including Don Quijote (7532), the popular and profitable Japanese discount retailer, plan to terminate their dual listings and have their shares traded only on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Among the various reasons given by Don Quijote, Kaga Electronics, CVS Bay Area, Gigas Kansai for delisting are the broken dream of 24-hour global trading and the disappearance of the Nasdaq brand name. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bill Clifford is Asia bureau chief of CBS.MarketWatch.com.