Local News

The Nishinippon Shimbun reports that the merger of the Tokyo and Osaka stock exchanges is likely to call into question the continued existence of the Fukuoka Stock Exchange, where trading has been slack. The creation of the larger stock market will bring about greater efficiency, so it is possible that many companies with stocks listed on both exchanges will delist from the Fukuoka exchange. There are now 119 stocks on the FSE, apart from the Q Board, roughly half the peak reached in 1997. Trading this year in the April-October period was down 12% from the previous year.