Boosted by a stock market surge that began in spring, Nomura Securities Co. and Nikko Securities Co. posted bubble era-like pretax profits in the first half of fiscal 1999, according to their earnings reports released Friday.

Nomura, Japan's biggest brokerage, logged an unconsolidated pretax profit of 112.63 billion yen for the April-September period, up 414.5 percent from the same period last year. Nikko, Japan's No. 3 brokerage, also registered a pretax profit of 54.52 billion yen, compared to an 11.6 billion yen loss a year ago.

Nomura chalked up a net profit of 73.28 billion yen compared to an 8.36 billion yen loss in the same period last year.