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Panasonic Shares Fall After Profit Forecast Cut 90% (Update2)

Friday, November 28, 2008 , Posted by Linda at 12:35 PM

Nov. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Panasonic Corp., the world’s largest consumer-electronics maker, fell to the lowest in more than five years in Tokyo trading after the company slashed its full-year profit forecast by 90 percent.

Panasonic dropped 11 percent to close at 1,144 yen on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, the lowest since June 26, 2003. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average rose 1.7 percent.

HSBC Holdings Plc and Nomura Holdings Inc. cut their investment recommendations on Panasonic after the worsened outlook. Net income in the year ending March 31 will be 30 billion yen ($314 million), less than the previously estimated 310 billion yen, as the global recession damps demand and product prices fall, the Osaka-based company said yesterday.

“The degree of this downward revision is certainly far worse than what we and consensus had expected,” Carlos Dimas, an analyst at HSBC, wrote in a report yesterday. “Going forward, earnings visibility is likely to remain limited.”

HSBC reduced its rating to “underweight“ from “neutral,“ and the share-price estimate by 42 percent to 950 yen.

Full-year operating profit, or sales minus the cost of goods sold and administrative expenses, will be 340 billion yen, less than the previously estimated 560 billion yen and 519.5 billion yen reported last year.

Eiichi Katayama, a Tokyo-based analyst at Nomura, cut his recommendation on the stock to “neutral” from “buy.” Operating profit will fall 20 percent in the next fiscal year starting April 1 on lower demand and falling prices of electronics, especially flat-panel televisions, Katayama wrote in a report yesterday.

Panasonic said industry prices for flat-screen TVs will probably drop 30 percent this fiscal year, worse than its earlier forecast for a 20 percent decline, as consumer electronics demand deteriorates.

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