Bank of Japan tankan survey finds big manufacturers’ corporate sentiment worsens at plus 12 + MORE Oct 1st

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TOKYO – Sentiment among big manufacturers slipped in the most recent quarter, Japan’s central bank said Thursday, underlying the shaky footing for the nation’s economic growth.
The bank’s closely watched “tankan” survey, released Thursday, fell 3 points to a plus 12 in September. The tankan measures corporate sentiment by subtracting the number of companies saying business conditions are negative from those responding they are positive.
Junichi Makino, chief economist at SMBC Nikko Securities Co., said the survey for the third quarter showed overall pessimistic sentiment, but other indicators, such as prospects for profits and plans for construction spending, were upbeat, providing some hope for the economy.
Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, has been trying to pull itself out of decades of doldrums by encouraging foreign investment and fighting deflation, a constant drop in prices that deadens growth.
Analysts said the survey did not give a strong indication either way, meaning that the Bank of Japan would likely continue with more of the same, although Bernard Aw, market strategist at IG in Singapore, was not ruling out surprise moves from central bank Gov…

Aaron Vincent Elkaim/CP
On Oct. 25, 2000, people tuning in to watch Peter Mansbridge deliver the evening news already had a pretty good idea what the lead story would be: that day’s bloodbath in the markets; specifically, the 25 per cent plunge in Nortel shares. He didn’t disappoint. “Good evening. Investors went on a selling spree this morning, and tonight, millions of Canadians are paying the price. Just about anyone who invests in mutual funds or a pension plan lost money today. That’s because most of those funds include shares of telecommunications giant Nortel Networks.”
So you had a massive collapse in Canada’s most valuable company, the threat of widespread losses reaching far beyond the company’s immediate investors, and a deepening sense of panic and uncertainty pervading the market. In other words, a situation almost identical to what just happened to Valeant Pharmaceuticals, with one striking difference. Yes, as recently as August, the biotech was Canada’s most valuable company and—thanks to its red-hot stock-price performance over the previous two years—is a top holding in many mutual funds, exchange-traded funds and pension funds…

WOLFSBURG, Germany – Wolfsburg is the town that Volkswagen built — literally put on the map in 1938 by the Nazis in pursuit of their dream of a “People’s Car.”
The town rode the company’s postwar boom to financial wealth and today the two are inseparable. There’s a top league soccer club that wears the VW logo and plays in the Volkswagen arena; Volkswagen’s headquarters and manufacturing plant take up much of its real estate. There’s a Volkswagen bank, a Volkswagen real estate dealer, and even a Volkswagen sausage factory.
So when it was revealed this month that the automaker had cheated on U.S. emissions tests, causing its shares to plummet, the mood here darkened.
“People are feeling a little down, like heads will roll, and not up high but at the lower levels,” said 65-year-old Mark Graff, waiting outside the VW gates to pick up his daughter after her shift on the assembly line.
Graff, whose son also works full-time at the plant, said there was worry that if sales slumped, shifts would be cut…