Hot Japanese Stocks and Entertainment

14 March 2025 - Osaka Securities Exchange (OSE)'s 3-Month TONA Futures achieved an open interest milestone of 100,000 contracts, reaching 100,335 contracts on March 13, 2025. OSE's TONA is a leading Japan STIR futures market among world exchanges, with the largest trading volume and open interest. Since the late 1990s, yen interest rates have remained at historically low levels. However, following the removal of negative interest rates and the abandonment of Yield Curve Control (YCC) in March 2024, along with two policy rate hikes in July 2024 and January 2025, JPY interest rates are once again moving. As demand for risk management grows in response to potential future monetary policy changes, more domestic and international financial institutions are entering the market to hedge against further rate hikes, expanding the investor base. The growing open interest in OSE’s 3-Month TONA Futures reflects the increasing number of market participants using the measure f...

Greetings to all for the New Year. I wish everyone health and prosperity for the year ahead. It has been exactly a year since the new NISA scheme was launched. As the Japanese economy begins to move toward inflation and individuals become more aware of and interested in investment, I feel that after a long wait, there has now been steady progress in the "shift from savings to investment." We at JPX have also been working to support these trends by providing platforms that enable easier investment for everyone. Last year, as well as beginning discussion on issues around and possible ways to enable smaller investments through the Study Group on Small-Size Investments, in November we acted to expand trading opportunities and improve transparency in closing price formation through the extension of trading hours and the introduction of a Closing Auction Session. Also, many companies have begun to take constructive action, including disclosure, in response to our M...

    “Our three core businesses reported strong growth in first half pretax income driven by higher revenues and rigorous cost controls. We are seeing results from our medium to long-term initiatives to grow stable revenues and diversify our revenue sources, reaffirming our current strategic direction,” said Kentaro Okuda, Nomura President and Group CEO. “We delivered our best Wealth Management results in nine years on the back of record high recurring revenue. In Investment Management, pretax income doubled as business revenue reached an all-time high and investment gain/loss improved. Wholesale performance rebounded strongly, reflecting revenue growth in all business lines and regions and disciplined cost controls. “Looking ahead, we will continue to intensify our global strategy leveraging our Japan franchise to consistently achieve ROE of 8 to 10 percent or more.”