* Railways, department stores, airlines lead gains
* Abe's emergency declaration triggers short-covering
* Healthcare shares attract investors despite high valuation
By Hideyuki Sano
TOKYO, April 8 (Reuters) - Japanese shares closed firmer for
a third session on Wednesday as Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ended
market uncertainty by declaring a long-awaited emergency, which
led investors to buy in shorted stocks of railway and department
store operators.
The Nikkei share average .N225 closed 2.13% firmer at
19,353.24, edging near its March 25 high of 19,564, while the
broader Topix .TOPX gained 1.59% to 1,425.47.
Besides short-covering after the declaration of emergency,
which will give authorities more power to press people to stay
at home and businesses to close, hopes of a slowdown in the
coronavirus-related deaths have also been propping up markets.
"Markets have known that it is coming and is welcoming the
move," said Hiroshi Masushima, market analyst at Monex
Securities.
With the number of domestic cases increasing in the past
couple of weeks, many market players have anticipated and also
called for such a move.
Post declaration, short-term players swiftly bought back the
shares of companies they had sold heavily on expectations of
huge damages from the emergency.
Railway operators soared, boosting the Tokyo Stock
Exchange's land transport index .IRAIL.T to close 4.1% firmer.
Tobu Railway 9001.T rose 5.2%, Odakyu Electric Railway
9007.T gained 7%, while Keio Corp 9008.T climbed 5.4% and
East Japan Railway Co 9020.T added 5.4%.
Department stores also bounced back even as they announced
store closures.
J.Front Retailing 3086.T gained 6.6%, while Takashimaya
8233.T rose 6.1%.
Airline shares also bounced back, with ANA Holdings 9202.T
rising 7.8% and Japan Airlines 9201.T up 8.8%.
The air transport index .IAIRL.T rose 8.2% to become the
best performer among the Tokyo Stock Exchange's 33 industry
sub-indexes, though it was still among the worst hit so far this
year, with a drop of 35% since the start of the year.
Some healthcare-related shares also maintained their
recovery trend. M3 2413.T soared 11.8% to a record high,
though some analysts cautioned it is now trading at more than
100 times its earnings.
Drugmakers also did well, with Chugai Pharmaceutical
4519.T gained 4.9% to record high, while Daiichi Sankyo
4568.T added 6.5%.
SoftBank Group Corp 9984.T erased earlier losses to end
0.2% higher, but underperformed in the overall market.
A WeWork board committee that negotiated a $3 billion
tender offer with SoftBank sued the Japanese conglomerate on
Tuesday for abandoning the deal, accusing it of succumbing to
"buyer's remorse" amid the novel coronavirus outbreak.
The turnover in the Tokyo Stock Exchange's main board was
2.811 trillion yen ($25.82 billion), below the average over the
past month.
($1 = 108.8600 yen)