TOKYO (AFX) - Share prices are expected to open lower due to emerging worries about the prospects for Japanese technology firms, with investors seen showing strong caution amid the ongoing quarterly reporting season, dealers said.
Costs cuts and kiosks lift Kodak to profit
Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- 3M Co., the maker of products from Post-it Notes to electronic road signs, said fourth-quarter profit jumped 58 percent on acquisitions and sales of optical film for flat-panel televisions.
Jan. 31 (Bloomberg) -- Sharp Corp., Japan's largest maker of liquid-crystal displays and mobile phones, reported a record profit in the third quarter on demand for its Aquos flat-screen televisions and handsets.
Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese stocks advanced, with the Nikkei 225 Stock Average headed for the highest close in more than six years.
Executives at Matsushita Electric Industrial should be gloating. On Feb. 1, the world's largest consumer-electronics maker said flat-panel TVs and digital cameras were responsible for one of its best quarters in more than a decade, putting it on track for a fifth straight year of big gains. It was sweet vindication of Matsushita's strategy of betting big on the plasma TV business.
Tokyo, Japan, Feb 2, 2007 - (JCN Newswire) - Sumitomo Chemical Company, Limited today announced that its consolidated net sales for the nine months ended December 31, 2006 totaled JPY 1,296.2 billion ($10,882 million), an increase of 18.1% over the same period last year.
Feb. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Asian stocks rose, led by Sony Corp. and Hyundai Motor Co., after the U.S. Federal Reserve said inflation was easing and a report showed the world's biggest economy grew at its fastest pace in a year.
Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Advantest Corp., the world's biggest maker of memory-chip testers, lowered its forecast for full-year net income 4.6 percent on price declines for flash memory and slack demand for chips used in liquid-crystal displays.
