3 Japanese Postal Stocks Listed in TSE

Japan Postal Holdings, JP Bank and  Postal Life Insurance were simultaneously listed in First Section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, November 4. The closing prices finished way above the offering prices for all the three.

Japan's postal services were privatized in 2007 and it has taken them eight years to challenge private stock exchange operations. The business environment is hardly favorable of late and the newly listed postal enterprises have a rough time ahead.

Japan Post Holdings started off with an offering price of 1400 yen, gained in half an hour 16.5% (231) to 1631 yen and closed at 1760 yen.
JP Bank marked a gain of 15.9% (230) over its offering price of 1450 yen at 9:30, up 1680 yen at the first session and closed at 1671, up 15.2% or 221 yen over its offering price.

Postal Life Insurance closed at 3430 yen, maximum allowable single-day gain, 1230 yen over its offering price of 2200 yen. In the closing session, Postal Life Insurance had a total trade of 340,730 shares.

The three postal enterprises procured approximately 1.4 trillion yen, way over the total amount procured by all newly listed companies in 2014 put together. It's like a giant whale and its effects on the market at large can not be underestimated.

Commenting on a prevalent speculation that the listing of the three postal enterprises might have some adverse effects on the behaviors of the market, Chairman Kazutoshi Inano of Japan Securities Dealers' Association said:

"I would say such a view is utterly groundless. I believe the market will have enough buying capacity left even after having dealt with this 'big event' this time".

Matsui Securities' senior market analyst Hoichiro Kubota puts it:

"I would say the more investors come to play the stock market, the more buoyant Japan's capital market. Listing of this size is the first since NTT 28 years ago; what this entails from here on can dictate the course of Japanese shares".