Tokyo, June 7: Japan's key stock average is expected to waver above 15,000 this week as investors await a meeting between the Group of Seven rich nations and Friday's settlement of stock futures and options, brokers said.Last Friday, the 225-share Nikkei average closed at 15,323.43, down 347.35 points from its close a week earlier."Institutional investors don't want to take action and the Nikkei 225 is likely to stay within a 15,000-15,600 range," said Masatoshi Sato, manager at Kankaku Securities Co Ltd. The G7 deputy finance ministers' meeting will be held in Paris on June 9 and 10. Brokers are focusing on the direction of the yen against the dollar, as it will affect exporters' earnings."We expect that the yen's downward trend will continue, but there are some risks that it will turn around," Sato said.Brokers also said there were risks that traders who had accumulated short positions might unload some of them ahead of the settlement, called the "special quotation", for the stock futures andoptions June contract.Ritsu Matsushita, director at Invesco Asset Management (Japan) Ltd, said he would pay close attention to more news of corporate restructuring. Last Monday, Japanese brokerage Nikko Securities andTravelers Group of the United States announced a capital tie-up that they said was the biggest U.S. Investment ever in a Japanese Financial institution.Travelers agreed to pay 220 billion yen ($1.58 billion) for a 25 per cent stake in Nikko while the Japanese firm said it eventually planned to spend 10 to 50 billion yen on a stake in Travelers.Shares in Nikko have been on a rising trend on the news, and the buying spree spread to some other brokerage houses on hopes of restructuring.On Thursday, Fujitsu Ltd said it would split its media-device division to form a new company in October through a merger with Fujitsu Towa Electron Co Ltd.Other factors which might influence Tokyo stocks this weekare as follows:Research institutions of major Japanese brokerage houses will release reportson Japan's corporate profit outlook.The Bank of Japan will release the wholesale price indexfor May on Tuesday.Economic Planning Agency (EPA) will announce machiner yorders for April on Thursday. Japanese research companies Tokyo Shoko Research and Teikoku Data Bank will release nationwide corporate bankruptcy data for May on Friday.EPA will announce gross domestic product data for January to March on Friday.
