Bad-loan disposal is the single most important task for banks at the moment. Apparently, the market is sending a cheer to Asahi's efforts.

Last week, beside a sell-off in the 30 shares being excluded, there was broad, index-based selling to make way for the more expensive shares coming in. Now the market figures it was overdone.

Gainers outnumber losers and sentiment is not bad. But investors are keeping away from large-cap technology stocks right now, as it's hard to see where the U.S. market is going.

Investors initially guessed Japan's high-techs were quite independent of the U.S. market, but everyone's been quite worried since there have been so many profit warnings.

We're not really interested in getting rich. The point is, and has always been, to endow the customer and ourselves with a sense of physical well-being.

No one paid the least attention, or else they told us to give it up.