Nikkei 225 Gains Again, Exporters & Retail Lead the Way and Bullish Merrill Lynch Raises Estimates (MER, ATE, NSANY, TM, KYO, CAJ, KNBWY, NMR, SNE, EWJ, GS, DB, MLEA, MTU, SANYY, PIO, HIT)

The Nikkei 225 edged up slightly after an up-and-down day of trading. The bank-heavy TOPIX lost minimal ground as financial stocks were sold in favor of tech and domestic-oriented retail stocks. Bloomberg reported that Merrill Lynch (ticker: MER) is bullish on Japan and has raised its 2006 target for the Nikkei from 15,000 to 16,000 citing the strengthening dollar as a boost to exporters.

      *Nikkei 225: +27.89 (+0.19%) to close at 14,708.32, opened 45+ points higher from previous close of 14,680, intra-day high of 14,736.26, intra-day low of 14,650.06

      *TOPIX: -1.02 (-0.07%) to close at 1,526.54, opened slightly higher, intra-day high of 1,533.76, intra-day low of 1,518.76

      *JASDAQ: +0.24 (+0.22%) to close at 109.69, traded down and lower than prior close for all of the morning and most of the afternoon until a late surge before closing

      *Yen: Continues to trade in the Y119/US$1 range

The same Bloomberg article above stated that Goldman Sachs (ticker: GS) identified Sony (ticker: SNE) as one of the companies to benefit most from a strong dollar, where a "one-yen change against the dollar affects Sony's annual operating profit by 6.5 billion yen." (Note: 6.5 billion yen is approx. US$54.5 million)

Despite the controversy surrounding Sony's use of privacy invading DRM software, the investment community seems positive and Deutsche Bank AG (ticker: DB) just raised its rating on Sony from "sell" to "hold" citing expected inflated earnings due to favorable currency conversion rates.

Today's advancers and decliners on the Tokyo Stock Exchange that have ADRs:

Advancers: Advantest (ticker: ATE) +1.54%, Nissan Motor (ticker: NSANY) +1.28%, Toyota (ticker: TM) +1.02%, Kyocera (ticker: KYO) +0.99%, Canon (ticker: CAJ) +0.89%, Kirin Brewery (ticker: KNBWY) +0.78%, Nomura Holdings (ticker: NMR) +0.74%, Sony (ticker: SNE) +0.70%

Decliners: Millea Holdings (ticker: MLEA) -4.29%, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (ticker: MTU) -3.21%, Sanyo (ticker: SANYY) -2.13%, Pioneer (ticker: PIO) -1.91%, Hitachi (ticker: HIT) -1.45%