Lots of people are saying global markets will rally once the war starts, but I don't think the advance will be that strong,
I think investors are looking to buy stable companies ... companies that have consistent, reliable earnings.
We had a bit of shock following the drop in U.S. stocks ... and there was a bit of selling, but that eventually turned around.
The problem is that the U.S. economy will not recover, and that demand will be weak there for some time to come.
While investors aren't expecting the levels of earnings growth that you see in China, people are thinking that Japan is a good bet for both security and growth.
Toshiba is one of those tech companies that seems to be concentrating on areas where it can make money, and not trying to do it all ... Foreign investors seem very interested in it.
The problem has caused a selling climax. Everyone is throwing in sell orders. The system is jammed and orders aren't making their way through. Even after five minutes, orders aren't going through. This is ridiculous.
Vodafone didn't have a good image in Japan ... people said the service was bad and that there weren't a lot of service branches. But I think things will change once Softbank is in charge.
Their impact is very strong. Everyone pays attention to what they are doing.
If there are more protests in China, the market will fall, without a doubt.
If you're a trader you don't want to be getting out of bed at 4:40 in the morning. Certainly nobody in Japan would ever support a sports team called the 49ers.
By becoming one of Japan's big three mobile operators, there are a lot of positive expectations for Softbank ... I think it's likely to charge users a lot less than Vodafone did.
The GDP figures were a downer, and persistent foreign selling is also making people wary of taking long positions.