The F fund has already gone up $0.22 - I doubt there is much more, rates are already so low. But if you enjoy watching the grass grow....
From TWSJ by Andrew Morse on 9/1/06.
A little hostility has sparked share buybacks and other moves by Japanese companies anxious to defend themselves against takeover bids. And for the most part, that is making Japan's stock market friendlier for shareholders and helping to boost share prices. I funders you'll enjoy this.
One method is to buy back shares from the market. Buybacks often result in higher share prices, as the company enters the market as a buyer, and the supply of available shares shrinks. In the first half of 2006, Japanese companies bought back $9.1 billion of their own shares from shareholders, more than triple the $2.9 billion they bought back in the same period a year earlier. By comparison, during all of 2001, Japanesew companies bought just $585 million of their own stock. Shareholders have started seeing an uptick in buybacks as hostile takeovers increasingly become a reality.
Companies are also trying to stoke their stock prices by increasing dividends. In 2005, Japanese companies paid a record 5.3 trillion yen ($45.3 billion) in dividends, a 26% increase from 4.2 trillion yen in 2004 and 56% more than the 3.4 trillion yen paid in 2003. The new friendliness toward shareholders is a break with past Japanese practices, which put employees and business partners first and shareholders second. Now don't you feel better.