Japan Financial News

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Investors’ pursuit of the companies supplying key materials to the artificial intelligence build-out is powering an epic rally in shares of chip makers. Other companies caught in the frenzy include a 175-year-old glass manufacturer, a heavy machinery giant and Japan’s leading maker of toilets.The AI trade has boosted stocks’ record run, with the S&P 500 climbing 1.5% to new highs on Wednesday after signs of progress on a Middle East peace deal and strong earnings from Advanced Micro Devices.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.American hospitality chain Marriott International is betting on a surge in outbound Indian travellers despite temporary disruptions from the West Asia war and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s call for austerity, with this growth likely to reshape customer loyalty programmes that reward customers with points and perks for repeat stays.The company said loyalty-conscious Indian travellers are increasingly driving demand across Southeast and East Asia, and now expect far more from hotel loyalty programmes than simple earn-and-burn on room nights, including upgrades and experiences beyond stays.“We’re seeing Indian travellers explode into Southeast Asia -- not just Thailand -- but in every destination, from Bali to Japan to South Korea, this summer,” said John Toomey, chief commercial officer for Asia Pacific (excluding Greater China) for Marriott International. He attributed part of the growth to rising air connectivity, led by IndiGo and Air India.The hospitality chain expects travel demand to remain strong through the summer months, with a significant jump in June and July compared to the same time last year.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Shareholders at Berkshire Hathaway’s early-May annual general meeting, often described as a pilgrimage for many who idolize Warren Buffett, might have been puzzled by some aspects of CEO Greg Abel’s presentation. Abel, a long-time lieutenant to Buffett who took over as CEO at the beginning of this year, underlined that he planned to continue with the Buffett tradition of buying undervalued businesses.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s central bank has quietly become a key pillar of macroeconomic stability. It is not just a monetary authority, but increasingly playing a role as a fiscal shock absorber. This deserves appreciation and caution.The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has managed an extraordinarily hard decade.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Mumbai: Two strategic joint ventures have set the Sajjan Jindal-led JSW Steel on course to becoming one of the world's biggest steel companies outside of China.The first joint venture is with Japan's JFE Steel through a recent 50% stake sale in Bhushan Power & Steel Ltd (BPSL), a company it acquired through the bankruptcy court five years ago.Add to that another equal joint venture with South Korea's POSCO to set up a new 6 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) capacity steel plant in Odisha.Including planned capacity expansions at BPSL, the two partnerships would add about 16 mtpa capacity by 2032, setting it on course to reach 80 mtpa capacity by 2032, according to Jayant Acharya, the chief executive officer and joint managing director of JSW Steel.The company’s consolidated steelmaking capacity stood at just under 38 million tonnes per annum at the end of FY26, including BPSL.These capacity additions would make JSW Steel a strong contender to be the world's largest steelmaker outside China by 2032.At present, ArcelorMittal is the world’s largest steel company outside China, with a capacity of 65 million tonnes per annum, according to 2024 manufacturing capacity data from the Belgium-based World Steel, the latest figures published by the international trade body.The BPSL stake sale to JFE Steel brought JSW Steel about ₹37,250 crore, which sharply deleveraged its balance sheet, and gave the company the financial muscle to fund expansion. The Mumbai-headquartered steelmaker pared about ₹30,000 crore of debt in FY26, mostly in foreign borrowings.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.India’s social capital deficit registers as a factor in its current account deficit through the demand for gold. Our appetite for gold is not an irrational cultural quirk. It is, in part, a revealed preference and a tangible symptom of our collective distrust in one another, society and civic institutions.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Honda Motor managed to stay profitable through a global financial meltdown, natural disasters, a safety crisis and the pandemic. Then came America’s electric-vehicle whiplash.The Japanese company, the fifth-largest automaker in the U.S. by sales, is confronting some of the steepest challenges it has faced in its nearly seven decades as a public company.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.It was 2-3 hours into my bus journey from Tokyo to Takayama when I opened my eyes and looked out of the window. The landscape had changed. The tall buildings of the city were nowhere to be seen and instead the bus was slowly driving past hills packed with alpine cedar, the trees covered in fresh snow.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Jung Da-yun didn’t quite like what she saw in the mirror. Her ears weren’t big enough.She booked a visit to a South Korean clinic offering “elf ear” injections.For about $70, a plastic surgeon injected the ridged cartilage of her ears with a hyaluronic-acid filler that caused her ears to perk up.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The market is betting on peace in the war with Iran while riding the relentless surge in tech stocks.Asia markets rumbled again on Thursday as Japan returned from its extended spring holidays and the Nikkei 225 roared nearly 6% higher on the opening day of trading.That takes the regional benchmark close to a 25% gain for the year, well outpacing the 11.4% advance recorded for the tech-focused Nasdaq and the 8% rise for the S&P 500.Not much has changed on the ground, or in the Strait of Hormuz, this week apart from sentiment, which seems tied to reports of a near-term deal between the U.S. and Iran that will end two months of hostilities and reopen the world’s busiest oil and energy conduit.Crude prices have slumped more than 12% over the past two sessions, with Brent futures falling below the $100 a barrel mark, on hopes of a near-term agreement that will lead to longer, more detailed peace talks between Washington and Tehran.But with stocks now more than 16% higher than their late March trough, and the first-quarter earnings season largely finished, the mood on Wall Street is expected to switch quickly.Jobs data on Friday could put the final nail in bets on a Federal Reserve rate cut this year, while crude prices and Treasury bond yields remain elevated enough from their prewar starts to suggest inflation will continue to echo through the world’s largest economy well into the fall.The war may be nearing its end, but the cleanup in certain markets will continue.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The global jet-fuel crunch is hitting Asia’s low-cost airlines harder than their full-service counterparts. Governments should prepare financial or operational support to avoid further flight cancellations during the busy summer travel season—as well as outright shutdowns like the collapse of America’s Spirit Airlines.Discount carriers like Malaysia’s AirAsia, Indonesia’s Lion Air and Cebu Air of the Philippines are already bearing the brunt of the energy shock. Policymakers must consider targeted measures in the form of loans, grants or fuel price relief.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The surging shares of US chipmakers such as Intel and Micron point to a deeper shift in artificial intelligence (AI). First, the narrative is moving from a speculative buzz around AI models to hard spending on the infrastructure that powers them. Second, big money is flowing into computing power and memory, the choke points of the AI economy.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Any doubts that China has become the heartland of the global car industry are quickly dispelled by a visit to the country’s main motor show. Beijing’s noisy and crowded event this year was twice as large as in 2024 (it moves to Shanghai on alternate years) with around 180 new cars on display. The show, which concluded on May 3rd, demonstrated once again that foreign carmakers are lagging behind their Chinese rivals in the race to the industry’s future.Yet the show also illustrated the extent to which foreign carmakers are looking to remake themselves in the image of their ascendant Chinese competitors.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.“Do you think you’re Superman?” Meera (Sai Pallavi) scolds her colleague Dino (Junaid Khan) after he nearly gets run over saving a child who wanders into traffic. He protests, and he’s right to. Dino is uncoordinated, underconfident, uncertain.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.From India and New Zealand formally signing a free trade agreement (FTA) to India once again becoming a net exporter of finished steel, the index of industrial production (IIP) easing to a five-month low in March, freshers facing disruptions in job offers,and gender disparity in India’s boardrooms — here is a compilation of this week's news in numbers.India and New Zealand formally signed a comprehensive free trade agreement (FTA) on Monday after completing the negotiations in just nine months in December 2025, making this one of the fastest trade deals ever concluded. The deal carries a $20 billion investment commitment from Wellington over the next 15 years, commerce minister Piyush Goyal said.The FTA will grant duty-free access to all Indian exports to New Zealand, spanning 100% of tariff lines.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.It has been almost two decades since the late Shinzo Abe [former prime minister of Japan] stood in India’s parliament and told the assembled legislators that “it is incumbent upon us two democracies, Japan and India, to carry out the pursuit of freedom and prosperity in the region.” Abe defined their task as protecting freedom of navigation in what he was perhaps the first to call the Indo-Pacific. That task has gotten only more urgent as America withdraws—or, more recently, imposes blockades on crucial straits—and China pushes harder against the first island chain.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.The International Monetary Fund in its recent spring meeting abandoned its single global growth forecast. It now presents three scenarios: 3.1% growth with 4.4% inflation, 2.5% growth with 5.4% inflation, or 2% growth with inflation above 6%, depending on how long the Strait of Hormuz stays shut. The International Energy Agency has called the 2026 disruption the worst energy shock the world has ever seen.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Geography may place India and New Zealand at distant points on the world map, but that distance has never defined their relationship. They have common democratic values, strong people-to-people ties and a deep cultural affinity, which includes their shared love for cricket. Much like their encounters on the pitch, India-New Zealand trade has traditionally resembled a Test match: steady and patient but often lacking in tempo, and has only picked up pace in recent years.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Shriram Finance Ltd expects its cost of funds to decline by around 1% over the next 18 months as the non-banking financial company (NBFC) looks to restructure its debt following a capital infusion from Japan’s Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group (MUFG).First announced in December 2025, MUFG completed the acquisition of 20% stake in the NBFC for ₹39,618 crore in April 2026. The non-bank plans to use about 50% of the proceeds to restructure its liabilities and the remaining to push lending in existing segments.The capital infusion also led rating agencies to upgrade the company’s debt rating to ‘AAA’ from ‘AA+’, which is also expected to help reduce funding costs.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Japan has decided to ease restrictions on its sale of weapons to other countries, although this would be limited to the 17 with which it has defence tie-ups. As India is part of the four-nation Quad—with Japan, the US and Australia as other members—Tokyo’s move opens up a possibility worth close consideration by New Delhi. We could diversify our set of high-tech arms suppliers to include a non-hegemonic power with which we have had good relations for eight decades.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.When the war in Iran started nearly two months ago, countries in Asia—which receive more than 80% of the oil and liquefied natural gas delivered through the Strait of Hormuz—were among the most exposed to the energy shock.But now, a combination of deep reserves, aggressive energy conservation efforts and savvy diplomatic efforts have allowed the deepest-pocketed of them to weather the blow—at least for now.They rushed to locate energy outside the Middle East, including the U.S. and Russia, often paying top dollar on the spot markets.