Listed companies in Japan logged a total net loss of 1.47 trillion yen ($13.6 billion) in the January to March period due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, the first quarterly loss in nine years, data by a securities firm showed Monday.

For the full business year ended March 31, aggregated net profit of the companies on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's First Section dropped 27.2 percent from a year earlier, the first two consecutive yearly falls since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe retook office in 2012, said SMBC Nikko Securities Inc.

The overall decline has been spearheaded by SoftBank Group Corp. and Nissan Motor Co., which reported huge losses of 961.58 billion yen and 671.22 billion yen, respectively, in fiscal 2019.

Listed Japanese companies previously saw a quarterly net loss in the January-March period in 2011 when an earthquake and tsunami disaster devastated northeastern Japan, causing meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear complex. At the time, the loss totaled some 500 billion yen.

In the 2008-2009 global financial crisis, triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., combined losses amounted to some 8.5 trillion yen in the January-March quarter in 2009.

Fifteen out of 33 sectors reported losses in the final quarter of fiscal 2019, including the transport vehicle and steel industries, as the pandemic dented global demand, with countries imposing stay-at-home orders and urging some businesses to suspend operations.

Not only manufacturers such as automakers and electronics makers who saw factory output suspended but services-related sectors including retail, airlines and railways were also hit by falls in sales due to restrictions on movement.

For fiscal 2019, SoftBank Group reported the first red ink in 15 years due to larger-than-expected losses by its key fund's investments in startup businesses, including U.S. co-working space provider WeWork, over the virus outbreak.

Nissan was in the red for the first time in 11 years as the pandemic worsened already falling global sales in the wake of the chaos triggered by the arrest of former boss Carlos Ghosn.

Japan's largest steelmaker Nippon Steel Corp. reported red ink of 431.51 billion yen, while trading house Marubeni Corp. and JXTG Holdings Inc. followed with big losses of their own.

The SMBC Nikko Securities data are based on earnings for the business year ended in March reported by 1,428 companies or 96.7 percent of the overall firms listed on the TSE's First Section by the end of May.

Due to uncertainties stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, 812 companies withheld earnings outlooks for the current year ending next March.

Despite the bleak outlook and lingering fears of another wave of coronavirus infections, Japanese stocks have been rising as hopes for economic recovery grow over the phased restart of business in Japan.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average on Monday ended up 184.50 points, or 0.84 percent, from Friday at 22,062.39, topping the 22,000 mark for the first time in three months.

But some analysts have expressed caution about possible excessive optimism among investors.

"The stocks are high compared with pre-coronavirus levels," said Keiichi Ito, chief quantitative analyst at SMBC Nikko Securities. "I wonder whether such prices should be warranted given the current situation."

==Kyodo

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