I still remember something strange in my memory when summer comes. It was a story about 60 years ago when I just entered the elementary school. It happened when I was taken by my mother to go to my father’s parent’s home, the dreary farming and fishing village facing the open sea in Nagasaki Pre. It was already dark when we got off the bus at the bus stop after making a connection with a ship and a bus from the island where we lived at that time. There were 3 persons of my mother, younger brother carried on her back and myself at the bus stop. We had to walk 20 minutes a road which passes through a field. There was no house around there. No street lamp but only moonlight lighted up the road where we will go. I remembered we went on silently.
Meantime, I heard the rustling noise of something moving in the furrow of the vegetable field which grew thick and something moving toward us. It sit on the bank at the edge of the road and crossed his legs. It covered a head with something like towel. It took a long pipe out at the waist and did a gesture to smoke like my grandmother used to round pipe tobacco and pushed it into the point of the long pipe. It looked like me in the size and its face was covered with towel so that I could see it clearly. However its gesture was just like my grandmother to smoke. When I told her so she scolded me saying “ Don’t look at it!” and she walked faster by strongly pulling my hand. I remembered I fearfully looked back at it again and again with curiosity. It was said that the area was the famous place where a raccoon often bewitched a man.
It was my old and valuable experience in the summer night like a folk tale of
a fox and a raccoon bewitched a man but it was first and last experience to me in my life. At that time there was a clever raccoon to bewitch a man to insist on their territory to the man. It was the time when the man and the animal could coexist in a delicate relation. The wild animal could hardly live in the current world.
The combined consolidated profits for 2 Q of 2015 of Japanese listed companies for the business year ending in March (except the financial companies – sharing 85% of the total) increased by 24% and the net profit raised by 28% compared with the same period of the previous year respectively. It shared 97% of the market capitalization. This has been caused by downfall in crude oil prices ($44.66 per barrel as of Aug. 6) and depreciation of yen ($1.00=Yen 124). The full-year ordinary profit for March 2016 will increase by 8% compared with the previous fiscal year and it will be expected to become best following the previous fiscal year.
Toyota is superior among them. Toyota’s auto sales number of 2Q of 2015 was 2,502,000. The profit of their consolidated accounts of 2Q of 2015 was 646.3 billion yen. It is 10% increase from the year before and recorded the best of the quarterly base. Toyota yielded their first place in the world auto sales number to VW after an interval of 4 years. However, the net profit of Toyota exceeds far 364.2 billion yen for VW, 136.6 billion yen for GM. Toyota’s sales made little progress in Asia, Europe and Middle East but on the contrary North America made up for its loss.
The companies of the world have procured the fund of 1.96 trillion dollars (=240 trillion yen) by issuing shares and corporate bonds from Jan to Jul of this year. Its breakdown was 560 billion dollars by shares and 1.4 trillion dollar by corporate bonds. If it goes at this pace it may exceed 3 trillion dollars of 2014 when it reached a record high. The companies have tried to secure the fund before the interest rate of USA raises and the investors have been shifting their fun to safer investment and assets.
Export from Japan, China and Asia will peak in September. However, it would not anticipate big improvement this year because of the dullness of Europe trade. Therefore, 3 Japanese shipping lines revised their prospect of the current fiscal terms.
3 Japanese Lines’ Business Section Result
| March Priod 2015 Result | Prospect for Mar 2016 | ||
| announced Mach end | |||
| NYK | Sales | 6,963 | 7,720 |
| Ordinary Profit | 98 | 275 | |
| MOL | Sales | 7,870 | 8,330 |
| Ordinary Profit | -241 | 50 | |
| K Line | Sales | 6,774 | 7,200 |
| Ordinary Profit | 206 | 120 | |
Unit: hundred million yen
The new production price has remained the same as the last month like $1650 per 20f. The number of stock of the new containers in China seems to be 1.1 ~ 1.2 million teu. The container manufacturers have been refraining from quoting the price for Aug and Sep in order to keep their container price. The amount of new containers in factories would be enough to cope with any demand from shipping lines.
On the other hand the largest leasing company, Textainer (3.3 million teu) announced the achievements for 2 Q of 2015. Lease charge income was 128.3 million dollar (3.8% increase from the year before). Pre-tax profit is 111 million dollar. Net profit was 40.3 million dollar. The utilization ratio of container was 97.3% in average in 2Q of 2015. The current ratio is 96.6% which is still high. Other leasing companies would attain the same result accordingly.
5 year L/Ts fixed with higher rate based on the expensive new containers after Leman shock will mature from this year onward. The new container price would be an average of $2500 per 20f which Shipping lines concluded in 2010. Therefore, they would replace them with L/T of cheaper price of new container these days in order to cut the cost. Leasing companies would encounter a difficult situation because it would be carried out under the buyer’s market. They will affect collection of the investment capital having already purchased new containers as speculation if demand of this summer misfires. Replacement of L/T with new containers by shipping lines would result into increase of leasing companies’ depot stock in the world. This will lead to lower the utilization of leasing companies.