Japan’s Nikkei average booked a 19 percent gain this year, with shares of high-tech exporters leading a rebound rally on a weaker yen and as economic stimulus measures helped turn around the world economy.
The benchmark’s yearly climb followed a 42 percent plunge — the biggest loss in its 58-year history — last year when investors saw the global financial crisis take a heavy toll on risky assets including stocks.
On the Tokyo stock market’s final trading day of the year yesterday, the Nikkei ended down 0.9 percent, dragged lower by bankruptcy worries about Japan Airlines.
“Weakening in the yen, a gradual recovery in the economy and growing demand for companies helped buoy the market in time for the year-end,” said Naoki Koga, a senior fund manager at Toyota Asset Management.
“But domestic-demand sectors, on the other hand, fell out of favor this year due to uncertainty about the government’s policy. Financial stocks, in particular, were hurt by worries about capital raisings,” Koga said.
In moderate trade, the benchmark Nikkei closed at 10,546.44 after earlier rising to 10,707.51, its highest since Aug. 31. It has clawed back about 50 percent since hitting a 26-year closing low in March.
The broader Topix slipped 0.9 percent to 907.59.
In one encouraging technical sign for the Nikkei, its 25-day moving average edged above its 75-day moving average, a phenomenon known as the “Golden Cross” that can often indicate further rises and is regarded as a buying signal.
“We’re likely to see the market off to a strong start in the new year. But the focus in the first half will be on corporate earnings for the next business year, with government policies holding the key for their direction,” Koga said.
The dollar’s surge against the yen to a two-month high earlier helped shares of exporters as investors welcomed a weaker yen, which boosts exporters’ profits when repatriated, but many lost steam in afternoon trade.
The greenback was steady above 92 yen, led by buying on last-minute commercial needs before the end of the year.
Japanese financial markets will be closed today and tomorrow for the New Year’s holiday.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats
RSS