Japan stock market week to Sept 15, 2008

Tokyo lost further ground in the week to September 15 (four trading days only because the last was a national holiday in Japan). The Nikkei 225 dropped 3.3% to close at the 12,200 mark, after temporarily hitting a six-month low, while the Topix index fell 3.2%. US reports about the bailout of troubled mortgage companies somewhat eased Japanese investors' worries about the USA's financial industry. However, another report that major broker Lehman Brothers continued to record net losses in the June-August period amid its financial troubles came as negative news. A later report of a possible buy-out of Lehman by a big financial institution encouraged Tokyo to bounce back in the last trading day, but the subsequent news of the broker's collapse came while the market was closed. The pharmaceutical index was off 1.9%, yet outperformed the market.