By JAMES BROOKE TOKYO, Japan - An avalanche of sell orders forced Tokyo’s stock market to close early Wednesday, with the main benchmark closing down 2.94 percent, after plunging almost as much on Tuesday when it lost 2.84 percent. ...Livedoor shares did not trade Wednesday for lack of buy orders but were marked down by the daily 100-yen limit for a second day in a row to 496 yen. ...With the abrupt tumble, analysts debated whether the damage would stop Thursday with Internet stocks or whether it would pull down the world’s second largest market, a bourse that grew 40 percent last year, drawing investors from around the world. “This thing has taken on greed, panic and fear,” complained James Fiorillo, an American who advises the Japan Natural Selection Fund, one of many foreign funds that heavily expanded investments here last year. ...Takafumi Horie, a 33-year-old bristled haired billionaire who wears T-shirts to press conferences, enraged Japan’s business establishment over the last two years for trying a hostile takeover of a radio network and for trying to buy a baseball team. ...In a market where individuals accounted for 50 percent of trades on the market last year, investors panicked Wednesday, rushing in too many trade orders for Tokyo’s often troubled market computer system. Compounding investor anxiety, stock exchange officials announced in advance that the order volume was expected to reach the system’s capacity of 4.5 million trades a day, forcing an early close. After normally instantaneous trades started to take five minutes and more to complete, exchange officials closed the market 20 minutes before the normal 3 pm closing time. ...“If Livedoor did not disclose correct data for their financial statement, that is big, sort of a similar situation to Enron,” Nobuo Sayama, a business professor at Hitotsubashi University said after the market closed Wednesday. Referring to the Internet companies that have clustered in Tokyo’s prestigious new hotel and office tower, he predicted “This event is a start of big problem that will expand to other Roppongi Hills companies. You are subscribed as roessler@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To manage your subscription, go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/ |