Sluggish Tokyo trade hits brokers

JAPANESE brokers, hit by lacklustre trading on the Tokyo stock exchange, are revising profit forecasts downwards for the year to next March. Yamaichi Securities and all of the 10 second-rank brokers expect losses in the first half.

Nomura, Japan's biggest securities house, has revised its profit forecast to 23bn yen ( pounds 151m) in the first half, compared with its May forecast of Y40bn. It slashed its profit forecast for 1994/5 to Y70bn from Y90bn.

'Today's revision in our business forecasts resulted from smaller income in equity-related business than earlier expected,' Atsushi Saito, managing director of Nomura Securities, said.

Nomura had expected average daily trading volumes on the Tokyo exchange of Y400bn for the first half to 30 September. The actual volume was more than 10 per cent lower at Y350bn during the April-August period.

Mr Saito said trading volumes could recover to an average of Y420bn a day in the latter half. 'Investors are showing strong interest in new shares to be listed. If we actively introduce attractive companies which are planning to list their shares, it will help increase trading volume.'

Similar comments were echoed by three other big securities houses - Daiwa Securities, Nikko Securities and Yamaichi Securities

'We see the trading value (in Tokyo) averaging at Y450bn a day in the latter half because the market will start taking advantage of next year's full-fledged economic recovery from the latter half of this fiscal year,' an executive of Yamaichi Securities said.

Yamaichi, the only one of Japan's big four expecting a first-half deficit, predicted a loss of Y9bn against its May forecast of Y10bn profit.