http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4623076.stm

Gonna affect world stock markets a lot? Gonna trigger something that's gonna affect the worlds stock markets? Or just one of those things that will affect Japan only?

In other words, should we be concerned?

 

No idea......that was my initial thought when i saw this earlier today

Fancy buying some shares in canon personally

 

Not neccessarily. I think a lot of it's to do with short term panic, partly because of the mention of fraud and also the Japanese are having a very cold winter which has forced up energy prices significantly leading to a lack of confidence.

 

Japan only, with some small spillover global effects. Livedoor was a rogue company, it's not endemic. At least i *hope* not!!

 

Small or not, rogue or not, it was enough to close the stock market early which have never happened before!

 

True, but that's a function of the computers *having* to close at 4 million orders. The market was rallying back when they reached that point...

 

It's a local difficulty as I see it, made worse because it comes on top of the building regulation scandal that knocked the Nipponese economy a bit. This is more dodgy dealing and it doesn't look great... but I doubt it's a global disaster. More of a setback in the Japanese recovery.

 

The actual reason for the slide was a rumour that Subaru would kill off the JDM cars, and start selling UK models at UK prices in Japan.

 

I don't know if Livedoor is a "rogue" company or not. What is true is that the guy who founded and runs it is not exactly an establishment figure in Japan. He's in his mid 30's, tends to dress very casually and is not adverse to making hostile takeover bids - all very unJapanese. He may have been playing fast and loose with regulations, or maybe it's the establishment trying to put him in his place, who knows.

The Japanese stock market went up by about 40% in 2005 after years of stagnation, so the 2.5% drop today is not massive in that context. All the stock markets are linked to some extent so there will be some limited knock-on effect, but in general I think it's a Japan phenomenen only.