Japan’s Long Margin Stock Balance Down Last Week

Tokyo, Oct. 2 (Jiji Press)–The balance of shares bought on margin in Japan dipped further last week, as the market’s robust advance provided traders with opportunities to cash in profits, a Tokyo Stock Exchange report showed Tuesday.

The balance declined for the third consecutive week to hit a fresh two-year low of 3,398,829 million yen as of Friday, down 64,129 million yen from a week before, according to the report covering transactions on the TSE, the Osaka Securities Exchange and the Nagoya Stock Exchange.

“Margin players apparently moved to take profits on the market’s rebound,” said Kazuhiro Takahashi, equity general manager at Daiwa Securities SMBC Co.

Last week, the 225-issue Nikkei average surged 473.08 points, or 2.9 pct, to finish Friday at 16,785.69 on the TSE, as foreign investors were lured by the relatively cheap prices of Japanese stocks compared with soaring equities abroad.

The TSE report also showed that the balance of short margin positions stood at 1,316,464 million yen as of Friday, up 32,551 million yen, as traders apparently saw limited upside potential after the market’s bull run.

As of Friday, the long-short ratio came to 2.58 in value, down from 2.69 a week before, and 2.81 in volume, down from 2.88.

The average daily turnover on the TSE’s first section increased to 2,591.6 billion yen last week from 2,537.8 billion yen in the preceding week.END

(c) 2007 Jiji Press English News Service. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.