Yahoo Japan Inc. made history today, becoming the first stock to trade at over 100 million yen (US$947,000) on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
Capping a six day run in which its stock finished limit-up each day, having risen by the maximum allowed by the Tokyo Stock Exchange in one day's trading, Yahoo Japan ended today's morning session limit-up at 101.4 million yen.
Despite its recent steep rise, fueled by a rosy earnings outlook and plans for a planned 2-for-1 stock split, trading did not get under way until nearly an hour into the session because of high demand for the stock.
In the afternoon, the stock fell back on profit taking to end the day down 330,000 yen, or 0.3 percent, at 99.1 million yen. In the broader market, the TOPIX index closed down 2.1 percent at 1631.28. While expensive by international standards, the stock prices of many Japanese companies are high because of a lower number of shares issued to the market.
Yahoo Japan is now Japan's leading Web site according to several surveys.
Internet market research firm Nikkei Internet Audit Center estimated 61.1 percent of home users and 63.8 percent of business users accessed the site at least once during December 1999. Announcing its results, Yahoo Japan said page views hit 1.2 billion in December, up 15 percent from the previous quarter and up 190 percent on the year.
On January 14, the company announced third quarter results which showed revenue of 1.6 billion yen, up 211.4 percent on the same quarter a year earlier.
Operating profit surged 442.6 percent to 589 million yen and profit before taxes climbed 426.1 percent to 584 million yen, to make the third quarter the sixth straight quarter in which record revenue and profit were recorded.
Yahoo Japan, in Tokyo, can be found online at http://www.yahoo.co.jp/.