Japan stock market week to Nov 3, 2008

Tokyo rebounded in the week ended November 3 (four trading days because November 3 was a national holiday in Japan). The Nikkei 225 leapt 19.7%, regaining the 8,500 level at the close, while the Topix index advanced 16.2%. To some extent, the market's recovery appeared to be a technical bounceback. However, investor sentiment was brightened by certain measures taken by the Japanese government to cope with the financial crisis and economic downturn. It announced an economic stimulus package worth 26,900.0 billion yen ($271.9 billion) and the Bank of Japan decided to trim the interest rate by 0.2 percentage points. Meanwhile, many players remained cautious about Japanese first-half earnings reports which are due in the next few weeks, anticipating that export-oriented companies may revise down their full-year projections due to the recently-strong yen and weaker demand overseas. The pharmaceutical index was up 11.0%, underperforming the market.