Real estate, securities lower in Tokyo

The Tokyo equities indexes saw little movement on Monday, while some individual share prices showed distinct movement after a number of companies reported earnings results on Friday. The Nikkei added 0.1 percent by the close of trade on Monday to 16,925.71. The Topix index was close to unchanged at 1,717.17.

The real estate sector was down by 1.7 percent on the day after its largest company, Mitsui Fudosan, reported its full-year results by declaring a record net profit. Despite those profits, its forecast of a lower than expected 11 percent net profit for the 2006/2007 fiscal year bothered investors enough to send Mitsui’s share price down 2.2 percent on the day to ¥2,495. Mitsubishi Estate was also down, by 1.4 percent to ¥2,455.

The electronics sector was mixed. Toshiba added 3.4 percent to ¥750 on a 70 percent increase in net profits in the 2005/2006 fiscal year. Goldman Sachs issued an upgrade from “inline” to “outperform” on Toshiba’s shares. Sony, however, dropped 4.5 percent to ¥5,460 on top of Friday’s 5.1 percent decline after Thursday’s weak profits forecast.

Japan Tobacco lost 2.8 percent to ¥445,000 on a prediction that operating profits in 2006/2007 will be down.

Even though it reported record net profits in 2005/2006, securities house Nomura dropped 1.9 percent to ¥2,525, while the sector as a whole dropped by 1.8 percent.

Gains came in the utilities and pharmaceuticals sectors. Tokyo Electric Power gained 3.2 percent to ¥3,020. Meanwhile Japan’s largest pharmaceuticals company, Takeda, added 1.7 percent to ¥7,080.

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