fascinating ...
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12:21am 02/23/04
New vehicle sales in Japan seen flat in '04 By Anne Stanley
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW)
[...]
Merrill Lynch
Merrill Lynch, the world's largest securities firms by capital, told investors to increase holdings in Japanese equities, saying higher capital spending was helping boost the economy and that companies were making efforts to improve shareholder returns.
The global strategy team at Merrill, the world's largest securities firm by capital, on Friday raised its recommendation on Japanese stocks to 'overweight' from 'neutral,' meaning that they should hold more Japanese equities than are in their benchmarks, Masatoshi Kikuchi, a strategist at Merrill's brokerage unit in Japan, said in a note to clients dated today.
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Foreign brokers place net sell Japan stock orders
2/22/2004 6:37:26 PM
TOKYO, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Orders for Japanese stocks placed through 12 foreign securities houses before the start of trading on Monday showed an intention to sell a net 6.0 million shares, market sources said.
There were sell orders for 27.1 million shares and buy orders for 21.1 million, the sources said.