The Japanese economy is a heavily export-drive economy. Japan imports raw materials such as iron ore, copper and other resources and makes many finished products using them for export. This was highly profitable to the Japanese as the world loved their products. however the demand for many Japanese products such as automobiles, consumer electronics, etc. have collapsed in the past few months.

In January Japan’s exports plunged 46%. During the first three quarters of 2008, the economy contracted by almost 13% from the same period last year. Echoing the problems , on March we learned that “Toyota Motor Corp.’s U.S. sales plunged 40 percent, while Honda Motor Co.’s sales dropped 38 percent and Nissan Motor Co.’s fell 37 percent.”

Despite the facts mentioned above, many of the Japanese ADR stocks are up this month. These stocks are being lifted by the overall market’s “irrational exuberance” with the news of Citibank(C) and Bank of America(BAC) making a profit after getting billions in tax payer money.

The following are some of the well known Japanese companies with the month-to-date performance:

1. Sony (SNE) – 17.03%

2. Nissan Motor (NSANY) – 16.50%

3. TDK (TDK) – 14.53%

4.Kyocera (KYO) – 12.11%

5.Fujifilm (FUJI) – 6.29%

6. Hitachi (HIT) – 6.26%

7. Canon (CAJ) – 2.27%

Honda (HMC) and Toyota (TM) are down less than 5%.