Monday November 17, 05:05 AM
Nikkei rises 2.1 pct, boosted by pension fund buying
TOKYO, Nov 17 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei (news) average rose 2.1
percent in volatile trade on Monday as buying by public pension
funds helped boost share prices.
Amid the global economic turmoil, so-called defensive stocks
such as drugmakers including Takeda Pharmaceutical Co (Berlin: TKD.BE - news)
gained, helping to buoy the market.
But major real estate firms plunged, with Japan's top
property company Mitsui Fudosan Co (Frankfurt: 858019 - news) down nearly 5
percent, after the Nikkei business daily said its survey found
rent charges for new office buildings in Tokyo had declined for
the first time in six years.
'Public pension funds have been buying shares when the Nikkei
nears 8,000. That is behind today's rebound,' said a stock
analyst at a Japanese securities firm.
The market fell in early trade, hurt by a sell-off after data
showed Japan's economy was in recession, with the Nikkei falling
near the psychologically important 8,000 level.
The benchmark Nikkei slid nearly 3 percent earlier as
investors came back from the weekend to find Japan's economy
shrank 0.1 percent in the third quarter, lagging market
expectations for anaemic growth of 0.1 percent.
The contraction confirmed that the global financial crisis
has sabotaged growth in yet another major economy, with the euro
zone already in recession, using the most common definition of
two consecutive quarters of contraction.
Takahiko Murai, general manager of equities at Nozomi
Securities, said he worried more about the outlook going forward
as Japan depended heavily on overseas demand for its exports.
'We have no factors to expect the GDP figures will be revised
up later as a deterioration in U.S. consumer spending is
happening really fast, and a resulting firmer yen could further
damage Japan's economic outlook,' he said.
The benchmark Nikkei added 1.83 points to 8,617.14,
while the broader Topix climbed 1.23 percent to 857.35.
Governments from Washington to Beijing agreed on Saturday to
a host of fiscal and monetary steps to rescue the global economy
but it was left to individual governments to tailor their
response to their particular circumstances and troubled
industries, leaving markets unimpressed.
Drugmakers gained, with Takeda rising 4.1 percent to 4,880
yen, while Eisai Co (Frankfurt: 855526 - news) added 5.2 percent to 3,460 yen.
But shares of Mitsui Fudosan sank 3.7 percent to 1,405 yen,
while Mitsubishi Estate Co (Berlin: MES.BE - news) shed 4.0 percent at 1,417
yen.
(Reporting by Rika Otsuka; Editing by Michael Watson)
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