
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 20, 1990                   TAG: 9003202471
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: TOKYO                                 LENGTH: Short

TOKYO STOCKS DIVE

A shaken Tokyo stock market plunged 4.1 percent Monday as it continued its worst slide since the worldwide crash in October 1987.

The pattern of recent weeks was repeated: Selling pressure was not heavy, but there was almost a total absence of buyers, which put share prices in something close to free fall by afternoon.

The Nikkei index of 225 stocks fell 600 points in the morning and the drop accelerated in the afternoon, closing down 1,353.20, at 31,263.24. Volume was a remarkably thin 400 million shares, about half normal levels.

The plunge left the market down by 4.1 percent for the day and by 19.6 percent so far this year, erasing most of the gains of last year.

"I don't want to say that it's the end of the world, but . . . nobody has the guts to put in a bid" to buy shares, said Masa Nakamura, head of international equities trading at Goldman, Sachs & Co.'s Tokyo office.

The Associated Press, meanwhile, quoted the Japan Broadcasting Corp. (NHK) as saying Japan's central bank was expected to raise its official discount rate today by a full percentage point to 5.25 percent to help stabilize the market, contain inflation and stem the yen's weakness against the U.S. dollar.

Government-funded NHK is known for its conservative reporting.

by CNB