Nikkei plunges 9% to 5-year low on panic selling

US 30 companies bubble financing woes has effect globally.

US bubble economy means global bubble also elsewhere , this needs to be fixed by various ideas/plans.

Time for world business to have more strong companies come in to fix things via more economic fusions of finances and gain in assets.

kiss your comfortable lives goodbye

Is there never going to be a time when Japan stocks are valued on their own merits, and that the nikkei does not rise and fall in tune to wall street? Is Japan so dependent on the US market?

Say good-bye to the old paradigms.

So, sorry, we can't afford to buy your exports anymore.

"Is there never going to be a time when Japan stocks are valued on their own merits, and that the nikkei does not rise and fall in tune to wall street? Is Japan so dependent on the US market?" ...or Europe yesterday. I think its called trade and global business. maybe some finance guy can give a better answer.

Kaoru Yosano Economy & Fiscal Policy Minister must have underestimated U.S. finanicial crisis when he had said impact on J-economy will be no more than 'a bee sting' (hachini sasareta tedo...?)seems like 'lion bite'

Pls read well 'teido' (extent, degree)...Regret type error.

Is this article really up to snuff? I was reading elsewhere that it plunged FAR more than reported here, and that it was the largest drop and biggest day of losses since the bubble burst in 1987 -- that's 21 years ago, not 5.

Get ready to feel the crunch, people... and it'll hit Japan just as hard as the US, if not harder (since they DEPEND on the US for everything). I guess we'll probably stop hearing complaints about Chinese food, since that's all anyone will be able to afford; so at least that's a plus.

Smith,

It's the biggest single-day drop in 21 years, but it ended at the lowest level in 5.

The US sells around 30,000 cars a year in Japan, while Japan sells about 3 million a year in the US. The auto market is closed in Japan, as are other sectors. Japan's long-running trade surplus, after 26 consecutive years, ended last month as exports to the US dropped 25%....something decades of trade negotiations failed to accomplish.

Talking points for the Bush-Aso Summit:

Bush: Welcome, Taro. We've got a real mess with the financial markets.

Aso: We Japanese want you to fix mess, quickly, for radiant happy Japan.

Aso: Our exports to America dropped 25%, bad for radiant happy Japan.

Bush: Sit down, Taro, I want to share with you an old story my Mom taught me.

Bush: You see, Taro, there once was a golden goose.

Aso: America must fix market, Japan must export for happy radiant Japan.

Bush: Taro, listen, this golden goose laid golden eggs, but then one day...

Never gambled on other people's 'belief', always commodities. Always.

Thank God I sold all my stocks and cashed in my funds late last year. I made a sizeable profit and would have lost it all, and more, had I kept them. The money is now collecting interest in the bank (which I hope doesn't go bankrupt). And now, with the yen strengthening, I have more money to send home (certainly not leaving the money in the Jp banks).

I learnt some lessons from the dot.com saga in 2000. There were already signs last year that things weren't going well. I'm just waiting for the markets to hit rock bottom before I slowly think about what stocks to buy and start all over again.

I would think the conversation probable went more like this

Bush: You see, Taro, there once was a golden goose.

Aso: Yes, the golden goose that was saved(eaten) by the golden dragon

Bush: Huh?

Aso: Word has it that the golden goose now owes the golden dragon a life times worth of golden eggs.

Bush: What of it?

Aso: Golden goose, golden dragon makes no differnce who it is, as long as Japan benefits (Even if we have to flip-flop on long standing beliefs.)

The drop will be corrected today, Japanese companies are sitting on mountains of cash. Didn't China replace the US as Japan's biggest trading partner last year?

The drop will be corrected today, Japanese companies are sitting on mountains of cash

and they will buy-back their own shares (strong possibility)

I don't think the financial mess is going to be half as bad in Japan as it is turning out to be in the rest of the world. They already went through the whole subprime thing once, and the trauma was bad enough that they played it safe this time around. Notice that the stock market is flopping, but yet the Yen is about the only currency that stays strong now.

The companies we see suffer the most are the ones relying on export, but ultimately exports are not all of the japanese economy. Then you've got funds all over the world who financed investment with low-interest yen loans, and are now scrambling all over to closes these positions. As a result, I can imagine that Japanese banks and companies, even though they face a gloomy market outlook, find themselves sitting on tons of cash at the moment.