Tokyo's stocks soar after a landslide at the polls
Marketplace Morning Report
Marketplace
4.5 • 927 Ratings
🗓️ 9 February 2026
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
From the BBC World Service: Japanese stocks jumped to record levels after Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s landslide win in a snap general election as investors bet on her vision of a “strong and prosperous” nation. The Nikkei 225 benchmark rose as much as 5.7% on Monday, hitting a record high. We also have a report from Ukraine, where Russian drone attacks on energy infrastructure have left much of the city's population in the freezing cold throughout the country's long winter.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Tokyo's stocks saw after a landslide at the polls. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm Stuart Clarkson. Good morning. Japanese stocks ended the day on a record high after the country's general election, saw Sinai Takichi re-elected as Prime Minister. Her Liberal Democratic Party won a two-thirds majority of the lower house. |
| 0:23.4 | The first time that's happened since Japan's Parliament was established in its current form in 1947. |
| 0:29.5 | BBC's Surinjana Tuari is with us on Marketplace. Hi, Surinjana. Hi there. |
| 0:34.5 | So quite a historic result. What does this mean for the economy in Japan? |
| 0:39.2 | Sanai Takayichi's promise to increase government spending and reduce some taxes to try and ease the cost of living crisis in Japan, just to give you a sense, the price of rice doubled in 2025. |
| 0:56.8 | So people are really hurting. She's really connected with voters through her promises to reduce the burden on households. But there are deep |
| 1:04.1 | structural issues in Japan's economy. And markets and investors until today had been very nervous about her increasing that government spending |
| 1:14.7 | because Japan's already got one of the highest government debts in the world. |
| 1:19.5 | And defence spending is something else that's been talked about, |
| 1:21.9 | and given the majority that she's got, it seems likely that's going to happen now. |
| 1:25.8 | That's right. She wants to invest in defense, |
| 1:28.7 | and that was something that was agreed with longtime ally, the US, in order to reduce the |
| 1:35.2 | reliance on Washington. Another area where she wants to focus on is new technologies, so things |
| 1:40.9 | like electric vehicles. And Japan has a real problem with its workforce. It's got |
| 1:45.9 | shrinking population. Its population is aging very fast. So she wants to invest in things like robots |
| 1:52.2 | and automation and factories. She wants to get more women back into the workforce. And she wants |
| 1:56.6 | to extend the retirement age so that older people are more productive for a longer time. |
| 2:02.0 | There's a lot at play and markets are really on edge, but from the looks of what happened today, |
| 2:08.4 | they're definitely betting that whatever Takayichi has promised, she might be able to follow through on |
| 2:14.6 | and it will ultimately boost growth in Japan. |
| 2:17.5 | Okay. Seren Januatuari, thanks for being with us here on Marketplace. |
| 2:20.4 | Thanks a lot. |
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