Tokyo Stock Exchange

A faltering Japanese yen and computerized program selling combined to drive stocks broadly lower in thin trading today on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The key Nikkei Average of 225 selected issues, which lost more than 266 points in the previous two sessions, plunged another 428.74 points, or 1.27%, to 33,362.34. The broader-based Tokyo Stock Exchange Index of all major listed shares lost 20.10 points to 2,516.27 after gaining a scant 0.89 point on Tuesday.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. plans to make a takeover bid to gain 100% of USJ Co., operator of the Universal Studios Japan theme park in Osaka, a person familiar with the plan said. Goldman Sachs, with a 41% stake, is preparing to acquire the remaining shares by March 31, the person said. The remaining 59% would be worth about 50 billion yen ($560 million) at Tuesday's closing price on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange's key index rebounded sharply today while the dollar inched up against the Japanese yen after remarks by Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita about his links to a stock scandal reassured Japanese investors, dealers said. The dollar closed at 132.62 yen, up 0.09 yen from the previous day's 132.53 finish. It opened at 132.87 yen and ranged between 132.60 and 132.89 yen. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average, which fell 186.03 points Monday, shot up today by 250.56 points, or 0.76%, closing at 33,249.

The future of the American Stock Exchange looked bright when Ira Koondel arrived in 1969. A bull market was in full swing and the Amex was packed with traders. So many people worked on the main floor that the exchange had to open an upper level with bleacher seats a few years later. Another bull market is roaring today, but life at the Amex is quite different. Traders have slowly left or been fired. The bleachers are all but abandoned.

The world's richest stock market, outracing other major exchanges in recovering from the 1987 crash, ended 1988 trading Wednesday with its major index at a record high, up 42% for the year. Analysts looked for gains to continue into next year on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, where the start of the six-day New Year holidays began with a ritual hand-clapping by 2,000 traders. In what one dealer described as a "festival market" Wednesday, the 225-share Nikkei index climbed 108.07 points, or 0.

A sudden surge in the value of the dollar has thrown a wrench in the works of the mammoth money-making machine known as the Tokyo stock market. The dollar's strength has stoked fears of inflation, higher interest rates and of a flow of Japanese funds to dollar-denominated investments. The dollar last week burst through the 130-yen level and is approaching the psychological point of 132 yen. It closed at 131.70 here Monday, matching its previous traded high for 1988 posted on Jan. 18.

Tokyo stock experts may disagree over whether their battered market has further to fall before it is valued fairly, but they agree on one thing: Hitting new highs will be very tough this year. That would be an unfamiliar experience for a market that has routinely chalked up record gains and that last year alone saw its key index rise nearly 30%.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange closed its 1989 trading today with a half-day session in a festival mood, and the fourth consecutive day of record-setting left the market's key index 29% higher than at the year's beginning. The dollar rose sharply, closing 1989 at a level 13.9% above its 1988 close. The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average, the stock exchange's main barometer, finished at 38,915.87 points on its fourth consecutive day of setting a record-high closing.

At Meiko Securities in the Shinbashi district of central Tokyo, a dozen men on Tuesday silently watched a bank of 12 television monitors flashing the latest stock prices. Others, smoking cigarettes, punched up stock quotes from two computers in the lounge. But Mitsuru Tanaka, a 30-year-old rice dealer, belied the calm atmosphere.

Japan's rocky efforts at selling off government assets are lurching forward with preparations to offer shares in Japan Tobacco Inc. on Thursday. But even before Japan Tobacco--the only company allowed to make cigarettes in this nation of heavy smokers--is officially listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the issue, in effect, has already failed. It follows several similar privatization efforts in which stocks initially surged and then crashed.

The New York Stock Exchange and the Tokyo Stock Exchange announced an alliance Wednesday that extends the NYSE's global reach and could lead to an eventual combination of the world's two largest financial markets. The broad, nonexclusive agreement announced by NYSE Chief Executive John Thain and TSE President Taizo Nishimuro allows the two stock markets to cooperate on joint developments such as financial products, mutual listings and technology.

The Tokyo Stock Exchange said Sunday that it would immediately boost trading capacity but would keep shortened trading sessions after a flood of orders forced it to curtail trading Wednesday. Meanwhile, share prices in Japan and most other major Asian markets were down more than 1% early today as last week's sell-off resumed. News that Tokyo-based Internet firm Livedoor Co.

Japanese government officials Thursday sharply criticized the Tokyo Stock Exchange for its inability to cope with a surge of stock sales triggered by an investigation of a popular Internet company's financial dealings. "A stock exchange that can't carry on trading simply doesn't deserve to exist," Economy Minister Kaoru Yosano said in a nationally televised news conference. "The exchange should make it a top priority to bring business back to normal."

The apparent suicide of a 38-year-old Japanese venture capitalist has added a sinister aura to the investigation into the dealings of Takafumi Horie, the brash Internet entrepreneur at the center of a drama that has roiled stock markets. The body of Hideaki Naguchi, a former executive with Horie's multibillion-dollar Livedoor Co. online media services empire, was discovered Wednesday night in a business hotel in Naha, Okinawa, 1,000 miles south of Tokyo.

Spooked by a police probe into one of Japan's best-known Internet entrepreneurs, investors swamped the Tokyo Stock Exchange with sell orders today, driving the market down and forcing the world's second-largest exchange into an embarrassing early close. The exchange's woes and the massive market drop rekindled questions about the durability of Japan's economic recovery, which had enjoyed a giddy run-up in stock values over the last several months.

It began as a stock trader's nightmare, an error caused by a momentary lapse in concentration perhaps, or a clumsy bit of typing that led to a $331-million loss. It has since tarnished the reputation of the world's second-biggest stock exchange and exposed cracks in its electronic trading system. The president of the Tokyo Stock Exchange has said he may resign over the fiasco.

Michael Howard, Britain's corporate and consumer affairs minister, handed Tokyo Stock Exchange officials a timetable for creating new seats on the exchange for British firms. He refused to divulge details of the timetable. Japanese financial firms in Britain may lose their licenses if Japan fails to open the Tokyo Stock Exchange to more British members, Howard said.

Tracking shares in a Sony Corp. unit that operates an Internet service provider made a weak debut on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Japan's first-ever tracking stock failed to trade until the afternoon, and then closed at 2,950 yen, down 10.6% from its initial public offer price of 3,300 yen. Sony has raised about $81.40 million through the issuance of 3,072,000 tracking shares.