Morning News & Views - Asia: A Summary of Select Global Markets Research

Research evidence excerpt

Morning News & Views - Asia: A Summary of Select Global Markets Research

tn parameters as the next practical milestone for Chinese LLMs.

AROUND THE WORLD

Murata Manufacturing (6981 JP) (Buy) - Earnings update: We raise our forecasts, target price (TP JPY 6,000→JPY 9,000)

Manabu Akizuki - NSC

Strategy of maintaining dominant market share in next-generation products rather than joining in with price hikes for

commodity MLCCs

We raise forecasts, hike target price to ¥9,000, reiterate Buy rating. We raise our earnings forecasts for Murata Manufacturing,

raise our target price to ¥9,000, and reiterate our Buy rating. We revise our USD/JPY assumption from 155 to 160, expect market

share to rise as a result of price hikes for commodity MLCCs by Taiwanese and South Korean rivals, and assume that price

declines will more or less drop from the picture in 28/3–29/3 (normally, prices for individual products fall 3–4% a year). We think the

company will opt for sustained growth in market share for MLCCs rather than across-the-board price hikes, which tend to benefit

lower-tier manufacturers. We lower the cost of equity capital assumption we use in our target price calculation from 5.0% to 4.0% to

reflect slacker competition as a result of price hikes by rivals. We assume company will be able to maintain dominant market share

in next-generation MLCCs.

Matsuzawa Morning Report - Decline in the Takaichi administration's approval rating and the risk of policy errors

Naka Matsuzawa - NSC

Watch for foreign investors abandoning the Japanese market

There is a risk that the Takaichi administration may push ahead with stronger reflationary policies without making progress in

identifying the reasons for its falling approval rating.