Tokyo, Apr 01: Weak share prices at the fiscal year-end are likely to force Japan’s top banks into the red again in ‘02-03, with unrealised stock losses ballooning from a year ago and nullifying their last-ditch capital-raising moves. The top seven banking groups calculate their unrealised stock losses based on average prices for the month of March, with the exception of Mitsubishi Tokyo Financial Group, which takes the closing stock level at the fiscal year-end.

The benchmark Nikkei stock average dropped 3.71% to 7,972.71 on Monday, giving a fall on the fiscal year of 28%. It was 15% lower than six months ago.
After taking into consideration accounting profits from group reorganisations and mergers of group units, Daiwa Institute of Research on Monday estimated the top seven banks had unrealised stockholding losses totalling 1.9 trillion yen ($16 bn) at the end of ‘02-03.
Dai-Ichi Life Research Institute estimated, however, that the top banks had around 5.4 trillion yen in unrealised stock losses. Bureau Report