Office rent highest in Tokyo

SINGAPORE – TOKYO leapfrogged London, Moscow and Hong Kong to become the world’s most expensive city in terms of office rentals as financial institutions reduced their demand for space, CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) said on Wednesday.

According to CBRE’s semi-annual Global Office Occupancy Costs survey, Tokyo’s Inner Central region commanded the highest rents at US$183.62 (S$264.20) per square foot (psf) per annum, higher than the US$172.62 average charged by landlords in London’s West End.
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Tokyo Equities Shrug US Weakness as Monthly Retail Sales Rise to Multi-month Highs

Asian Market Update: Tokyo Equities Shrug US Weakness as Monthly Retail Sales Rise to Multi-month Highs; S&P Raises New Zealand Currency Rating Outlook to Stable on Policy Flexibility After Budget Report Forecasted 10 Years of Deficits – Asian equity markets traded mixed despite the bearish sentiment on Wall St. that was widely attributed to more extreme selling in US Treasuries, with rising yields also helping the greenback. Nikkei225 led the gainers on better than expected retail sales

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Tokyo stocks open lower

TOKYO – JAPANESE share prices opened lower on Friday with the benchmark Nikkei-225 index falling 108.01 points, or 1.17 per cent, to 9,156.14 in the first minute of trading. — AFP
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Tokyo stocks open lower

TOKYO – JAPANESE share prices opened lower on Thursday with the benchmark Nikkei-225 index falling 64.29 points, or 0.68 per cent, to 9,280.35 in the first minutes of trading.
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Currency Strength, Housing Concerns Temper Early Equity Gains in Tokyo and Sydney

Asian Market Update: Currency Strength, Housing Concerns Temper Early Equity Gains in Tokyo and Sydney; Sharp Dollar Selloff Following Fed’s Arrival at QE Party Subsides, while Gold Retreats – The Federal Reserve has jumped on the quantitative easing bandwagon in earnest, following the monetary authorities in Switzerland, UK, and Japan in expanding its balance sheet by over a trillion dollars. The Fed announcement of a plan to buy up $300B in long-term treasuries and $750B more in agency MBS

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Learning Forex Trades

Asian Session: Tokyo ends 2008 on a high, but books worst year in its history, rest of Asia also trading up.

G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USD EUR -0.084 JPY -0.117 GBP -0.447 CHF -0.938

Here we are, in the final moments of a year one struggles to find adequate words to describe. It would have been a year that redefines many economic and financial practices, a very real and painful paradigm shift. As we take stock of the year behind us we can’t but anticipate what 2009 has in store for us, have the protagonists in this whole affair – those that are left that is – learnt from the…

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Asian Session: Dollar has a firm start to 2009.

G10 Advancers and Decliners vs USD CHF -0.012 EUR -0.222 GBP -0.308 JPY -0.586

Volumes are still very thin in this first day of trading of 2009 as many bourses in Asia are still closed for today. The EURUSD channeled downward this morning bringing the pair from 1.4130 levels where it sat for the past 2 weeks as low as 1.3850 – now trading at 1.3920. The USDJPY rose today – Tokyo was closed for a holiday, the Yen giving way to the Dollar as global stocks posted their largest…

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(Updates with more details, share price)
By Mariko Katsumura
TOKYO, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Delta Air Lines Inc  which took over rival Northwest Airlines last year, said it expects about 2,000 staff to opt for an early retirement programme as it aims to trim capacity as much as 8 percent this year.
The latest move by the world’s biggest airline highlights a trend among major airlines fighting for profits as global economic recession weighs on passengers’ travel budgets.
In December, Delta, which has about 75,000 staff worldwide, said it would offer employees severance packages, but it didn’t say how many jobs it aimed to cut.
“We are expecting a number of around 2,000 because the capacity reduction is going to be around 6 to 8 percent,” Delta CEO Richard Anderson told reporters on the sidelines of a media briefing in Tokyo.
“We will know more towards the end of this month, because we gave employees a wide window so that they can make the right decision.”
In March 2008, Delta announced 2,000 job cuts and offered voluntary severance packages. More than 4,000 workers took advantage of the packages.
Prior to the merger, Northwest trimmed its staff by about 2,000 workers.
Major airlines, battered by sagging travel demand and losses on fuel hedging costs, have been working to bolster their profitability by cutting capacity and finding new revenue streams. Capacity reductions affect the number of seats for sale and are achieved by cutting flights or replacing large planes with smaller ones.
Japan Airlines (9205.T) plans to cut about 10 percent of its total workforce by end of March while Singapore Airlines (SIAL.SI) is reportedly planning to ask its cargo pilots to take unpaid leave as the carriers face tough operating conditions.
Atlanta-based Delta said last month its domestic capacity would fall 8 percent to 10 percent in 2009, and international capacity would fall 3 percent to 5 percent as travel demand wanes. Systemwise, that would mean a reduction of 6 to 8 percent. [ID:nN021528]
Anderson told reporters on Thursday Delta expects a 10 percent decline in industry revenue this year as the economic slowdown hits travel demand, taking revenue to where it was after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
“But remember, the fuel price is dramatically lower,” he said, adding that the carrier expects to save $5 billion this year from the plunge in oil prices since last summer.
“We expect an enormous benefit from lower fuel prices,” said Anderson, adding that would help the carrier achieve profitability in 2009.
U.S. crude oil future CLc1 traded around $37 a barrel in New York on Wednesday, down from an all-time high above $147 in July last year.
Delta’s shares closed down 7.4 percent at $10.29 in New York on Wednesday. The shares have lost about 10 percent this year. (Editing by Lincoln Feast)
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TOPWRAP 2-U.S. bank crisis deepens as ECB rate cut expected

* European Central Bank seen cutting interest rates
* Equity markets slide on bank news and weak data
* Citigroup shares plunge as banking crisis returns
* U.S. govt close to giving Bank of America new aid-source (For more on the global economic crisis, click [nCRISIS])
By Sakari Suoninen and Tetsushi Kajimoto
FRANKFURT/TOKYO, Jan 15 (Reuters) – Bank of America and Citigroup faced fresh turmoil as investors questioned if they had the capital strength to cope with a global crisis that is set to push the European Central Bank to cut rates later on Thursday.
Data across the developed world pointing to a deepening recession and fears that more public money in the United States may be needed to keep banks afloat weighed on financial markets.
Asian equities followed European and U.S. markets to fall to multi-week lows. Tokyo’s Nikkei average slipped close to 5 percent after news that Japan’s core machinery orders fell at a record pace in November. [ID:nT164777] [ID:nT230571]
Shares in Bank of America (BAC.N) and Citigroup (C.N), two of America’s biggest banks, fell as they faced a fresh crisis of confidence over whether they have enough capital to cover haemorrhaging losses from toxic assets and the struggling global economy.
“The large banks in the U.S. are not lending, and they’re desperate to conserve capital,” said Dan Alpert at Westwood Capital in New York. “Banks only remain going concerns because the federal government is topping up their equity.”
The financial crisis began in credit markets in 2007, when bank lending dried up in the face huge losses in the U.S. housing market. The global economy has deteriorated relentlessly since, pushing the biggest developed countries into recession and raising alarm bells over rising job losses.
Citigroup, whose shares dived 23 percent on Wednesday, plans to report quarterly results six days ahead of schedule on Friday and analysts are looking for a fifth straight multibillion-dollar loss. [ID:nN14490234]
The bank was also widely expected to provide details of a reorganisation of the company designed to ensure its survival.
Bank of America is close to receiving billions of dollars of support from the U.S. government, a source familiar with the matter said, as it tries to digest Merrill Lynch & Co Inc, the investment bank and brokerage it bought on Jan. 1.
Merrill has billions in troubled assets — ranging from commercial real estate to subprime mortgages — that suffered during a brutal fourth quarter.
Citigroup has already been propped up with $45 billion in government funds from the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), while Bank of America and Merrill have received $25 billion
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