Ann: Quarterly Activities Report and Appendix 5B, page-74

There are some interesting movements happening. While the Nikkei is down, the Yen has exploded upwards so its not a simple case of the Japanese economy being toast because currencies don't rocket upwards when the economy is stuffed. While the immediate focus of commentary has been on the Nikkei, part of that could well be keeping valuation parity in foreign currency terms. The Yen was dropping in strength all year (assisting the Nikkei to get stronger if equivalent USD pricing were to be maintained). In the last 4 weeks the Yen has really strengthened and clawed back all the previous losses of the year to be back to start of year values.

The graph below is the normal currency expression of USD to Yen (higher = weaker Yen). From 161.6 on the 10th of July the Yen has strengthened to 142.5 meaning to maintain USD market cap equivalence, a yen quoted share price would need to fall 12%.

Flipping the graph to the inverse an increase in the graph is the yen getting stronger. The Yen has stormed up in the last month (but still remains miles from historical high's against the USD).

With the knowledge that the Yen has just regained 6 months of losses, I'm less concerned about some of the froth coming off the Nikkei (even if dramatically occurring in one day).