The Nikkei, one of the most popular newspapers in Japan, published its own flash estimates of financial results of several Japanese companies during the quarterly results season in Japan, which reached its peak last week. The Nikkei’s forecasts turned out to be surprisingly close to the real figures which Japanese corporations released few days later.
Thus, it prompted The Financial Times, the U.K. daily newspaper, to inquire into the previews made by analysts from Nikkei. What is the secret of such accuracy? Japanese companies affirm that such precise flash estimates seen by 2.8 million readers of Japan’s biggest business title are based on pure “guesswork”, but not the data provided by these companies.
For example, The Financial Times refers to GungHo Online Entertainment which disclosed last week sparkling results for H2 2013 thanks largely to its hit smartphone game Puzzles & Dragons. The company reported the record numbers – operating profit of ¥53.8 billion ($520 million) on sales revenue of ¥94.3 billion. However, six days earlier, the Nikkei had evaluated operating profit to be “about ¥50 billion” and sales revenue - “about ¥93 billion”. In fact, more GungHo shares were traded on the day of the Nikkei review than on the day of the official release of the results. In other words, on that day a trading stock volume was 50% higher than the previous 15-day average.
