Board-Ansicht
Mix-Ansicht- Privatanleger sind für 70% des Umsatzes der Börse Tokio verantwortlich (E). - El Sheik, 14.11.2003, 09:09
Privatanleger sind für 70% des Umsatzes der Börse Tokio verantwortlich (E).
-->Friday, November 14, 2003
CHANGING MARKET: Day Traders Expand Presence, Influence
TOKYO (Nikkei)--The stock market has been undergoing significant changes since the spring, when the Nikkei Stock Average bottomed out at a postbubble low.
Individual investors trading through the Internet, as well as foreign investors, are taking center stage, replacing pension funds and other institutional investors that are trimming their purchases of domestic equities.
The first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange saw every listed stock change hands each trading day during a 10-day period in August and September. The rare event, which has taken place on only 18 days since 1985, is attributed to individual investors, who have taken an interest in issues that are generally shunned by institutional investors.
Trading volume by individuals exceeded 140 billion shares in the first 10 months of this year, surpassing the record of 138.6 billion shares for all of 1988 and overtaking the turnover of foreign investors. Net traders, who make repeated transactions each day, led the market, accounting for about 70% of the value of deals conducted by individuals between April and September.
Kenji Kayama, a 37-year-old corporate employee, places buy and sell orders during lunch time. He started to invest in stocks in May, using 10 million yen that he had saved to buy a house.
In the beginning, he only traded one issue, but now he deals in about 10 stocks. Countless numbers of people like him are contributing to the recent massive turnover on the stock market, observers said.
A drop in brokerage commissions to less than 10% of what they were before deregulation and much looser requirements for margin trading partly account for the active trading by individual investors. But by far the biggest reason is the Internet, which has made it significantly easier for individuals to trade stocks as well as to obtain investment information.
The current stock market, which has been"democratized" by the Net, is"totally different from the market of the past, which was under the strong influence of buy and sell recommendations made by large brokerage firms," said Atushi Kunishige, president of Net brokerage DLJ Direct SFG Securities Co.
The presence of Net traders is now so large that, to a certain extent, companies planning an initial public offering can not ignore them.
Software developer Ox Information Co. (2350) asked Net brokerage E*Trade Japan KK (8627) last year to lead manage its IPO, bucking the tradition that says IPOs must be underwritten by major securities companies that have business ties with institutional investors.
Although E*Trade eventually served as a deputy lead manager in the firm's listing in January on the Hercules market for start-ups, Ox President Takeshi Shinohara said,"We need to attract Net investors to ensure the liquidity of our stock."
As a matter of fact, 53 of the 76 firms that debuted on the three markets for emerging companies chose Net brokerages as their lead manager. Some larger companies that listed on the first section of the TSE, including Taiyo Life Insurance Co. (8796) and NEC Electronics Corp. (6723), appointed Net brokerages as one of their underwriters.
The activities of Net traders are even beginning to affect the strategies of professional dealers."Every morning, we analyze the transactions of individual investors based on the trading patterns of Net brokerages before deciding on an approach for the day," said an official in charge of proprietary trading at a large securities firm.
Meanwhile, some critics have noted that the expanded presence of Net traders has accelerated short-term swings in stock prices. The average trading range of the Nikkei Stock Average has been on the rise since April, coming close to 200 points.
And despite the hefty trading volume, the percentage of shares held by individuals has remained flat at just above 20% because the overwhelming majority of Net traders sell their shares quickly to secure a profit.
Most importantly, active buying/selling by Net traders has not led to a recovery in the stock market's most important function, that of channeling funds into companies over the medium to long term, analysts said.
The next challenge facing the stock market is to"entice individual investors who hold shares for a long time," said Nobuyuki Koga, president of Nomura Holdings Inc. (8604)
(The Nihon Keizai Shimbun Friday morning edition)
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