Over the last couple of months, the Nikkei 225 stock index has been steadily recovering, passing the 16,000 mark at the end of September. Market sentiment is good and foreigners are busy buying stocks, being net buyers last week. As readers will know, we're interested in freshly listed companies, particularly small cap firms that are more likely to be run by entrepreneurs.

Hay fever. It's the wrong time of year for it, hay fever usually hits in spring, but given that the next issue of Japan Inc. magazine carries details of a new invention to help control it, we thought we'd give some advance notice on the subject here at Terrie's Take.

The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare is apparently considering a proposal to publicly honor wealthy retirees who decide not to collect their pension. Currently a pensioner who starts collecting their payments cannot opt out of the system, but the new proposal will allow wealthier pensioners to opt in and out depending on their feeling of financial well-being.

Having cancer at any age is a shock, but it is never worse than when found in a child. Among Japan's roughly 20m kids under the age of 15, about 1,600 of them have the most common form of cancer in children -- Leukemia. Of the various types of this blood disease, approximately 80% have Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) and 20% Acute Myelocytic Leukemia (AML).

In Japan's recruiting world, apart from the 800lb gorilla called Recruit, there really isn't any company that has bridged the various disciplines of the industry. Instead, success for those companies which have gone public has come from specializing in a particular skill area. There are the temp staffing agents, the online job boards, the outplacement agencies, and as of this week, the real McCoy -- executive and personnel placement.

Several weeks ago, one of our readers made the comment that while we have been commenting on firms doing IPO's, it would be nice to hear about a firm that is still on the way. We thought it would be a good idea to interview some Japanese CEOs of promising companies, and try to understand some of the thinking and opportunities that lie before them in their rush to an IPO.

For those of us still struggling to use our cell phones and PCs, there is a whole new world of Internet activity and interaction going on that we will have to stay up with if we want to sell online to anyone under the age of 30. One of these hot new business sectors is that of Social Network Services (SNS), which lets millions of people find new friends and relationships online by matching profiles and forming groups.

Back at the end of June (Terrie's Take 380), we carried a news item about a Dell laptop that exploded into flames at a conference here in Japan and which was caught on video.

With its great public transport system, Japan is one of the world's truly personally mobile cultures. There are portable gadgets of all kinds, not least of which include cell phones and music players. Have you ever wondered just how many batteries are needed annually to feed this mobility? We decided to check, and apparently Japanese consumers own more than 100m cell phones and 200m+ personal entertainment and information devices. As a result, they consume about 4.6bn batteries worth JPY700bn (US$5.98bn) yearly, of which about 78% are primary (disposable) batteries.

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