Tokyo trading down on political fears

At the end of morning trade in Tokyo on Thursday, trade volume had reached almost 1.1 billion shares, recently the average for a full day’s trade, and 32 of 33 sectors on the Tokyo Stock Exchange were lower. The Nikkei 225 had lost 1.03 percent to 11,858.85, and the Topix index was down 0.87 percent to 1,201.49.

The losses were due to profit-taking as well as to worries surrounding the vote in the upper house of parliament on post office privatization, which was reported to have been postponed until Monday.

There was speculation that the delay was due to the Liberal Democratic Party having not yet managed to line up enough votes for the legislation to win approval in the upper house.

Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi has threatened to call elections if the legislation does not pass, and many analysts worry that the political upheaval new elections would cause could interfere with Japan’s economic recovery.

Automobile manufacturers had a rough time of it on the day. Toyota lost 2.1 percent to ¥4,190 on the news that its quarterly operating profit was down by 9.7 percent.

Honda lost 1.4 percent to ¥5,820, Nissan was down 0.8 percent to ¥1,167, and Suzuki declined by 2 percent to ¥1,836 on profit-taking following the release of a positive quarterly report on Wednesday.

Meanwhile in the electronics sector, Fujitsu lost 1 percent to ¥625, Sony fell by 0.5 percent to ¥3,730, and Canon declined 0.5 percent to ¥5,550.