Car part maker based in Japan, Takata Corporation fell in Tokyo trading after a Japanese day trader told his more than 103,000 Twitter followers he sold shares in the airbag maker,Automotive News reports.
Takata stock dipped as much as 8.8 percent, the biggest intraday decline since Nov. 9, and finished the day down 7.5 percent in Tokyo.
The trader, a former video game champion and pachinko gambler who goes by CIS, wrote in a Twitter posting Wednesday that he sold all the Takata shares he’d purchased three weeks ago.
Bloomberg Markets magazine profiled CIS and the cult following he built among Japanese day traders in its November 2014 issue. In a phone interview today, he estimated that his Takata trade involving about 800,000 shares had netted a pretax gain of about $1.2 million. He also provided a screenshot of his trades.
Takata had climbed to the highest since Jan. 29 at Tuesday’s close as the company works to secure a buyer and finalize its restructuring plans following a series of recalls that may lead to replacement of more than 100 million air bags worldwide.
The auto parts maker has honed in on bids from Autoliv Inc. and Key Safety Systems Inc. as it progresses toward a final round of negotiating a sale, according to people familiar with the matter.
