Japan's First-Quarter Season, Two-Thirds Reported
With most of the March-year cohort in, guidance raises are running ahead of last year — but concentrated in a narrow band of exporters.
Coverage: 3 of 220 companies in this theme (6326.T, 7203.T, 8058.T) — a sample, not the full set.
About two-thirds of Japan's March-fiscal-year companies have now reported their first quarter, which is enough to say something about the shape of the season rather than the noise in it.
The headline
Upward guidance revisions outnumber downward ones by a wider margin than the same point last year. That sounds unambiguously good until you look at where they sit: the raises cluster in machinery and autos, both of which carry heavy overseas revenue and therefore heavy currency translation.
The part that is not currency
Strip the exporters out and the domestic-facing cohort — retail, construction, regional services — is closer to flat, with several companies citing labour cost as the binding constraint on margin rather than demand.
What the rest of the season decides
The remaining third skews domestic. If the pattern holds, the season ends up looking like a currency story wearing an operational one's clothes — a distinction that matters a great deal for anyone extrapolating the raises into next year.