Shareholders are cheering the record share price of Fast Retailing Co., the operator of casual fashion giant Uniqlo that’s just become the most valuable apparel retailer in the world.
But some other market observers are sounding notes of caution over the stock’s ever-increasing influence on the 225-issue Nikkei average of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, as technical changes caused by its recent highs raise its already-outsized impact on the blue-chip gauge.
A fivefold increase in Fast Retailing’s tick size — the minimum amount by which the stock can move up or down — and a surge in its weighting in the index mean the Nikkei’s rise is increasingly intertwined with that of the casual clothing firm, even as Japanese stocks look to test record bubble-era highs.