Japanese bank stocks are grabbing more headlines these days as they continue to scavenge around wounded U.S. i-banks. Nomura (8604) (NMR: 7.60 +2.01%) added some more Lehman (LEH: 0.00 N/A) human capital (in Europe/ME after snagging its Asian ops) and Sumitomo Mitsui FG (8316) (SMFJY.PK) is said to be considering making an investment in Goldman (GS: 173.59 -0.78%). Investors responded particularly favorably to Nomura’s efforts to become global-class, pushing the stock up 15% to ¥1,505 over the last two sessions. No doubt this is a great opportunity, but the challenge will be achieving synergies and profit accretion (Update: see FT commentary in How to say ‘no’ – er, ‘yes’ – in Japanese and Nomura creates $1bn pool for Lehman staff). The Nikkei managed a 0.2% gain after being down nearly 2% intraday. TOPIX ended fractionally lower.

In light of Japanese stocks going ex-dividend (interim) tomorrow, below is a ranking of Japanese stocks with ADRs based on ordinary share dividend yield (above 2.5%).* The Japanese benchmark 10-year JGB was last at 1.49%.

Nissan (7201) (NSANY: 0.00 0.00%) — 4.98%
Makita (6586) (MKTAY: 33.678 -0.80%) — 4.05%
NTT DoCoMo (9437) (DCM: 15.50 +0.52%) — 2.93%
Toyota (7203) (TM: 78.18 +1.55%) — 2.91%
Mitsui (8031) (MITSY: 336.67 -3.02%) — 2.85%
Canon (7751) (CAJ: 46.03 +2.63%) — 2.61%
Honda (7267) (HMC: 36.42 -0.49%) — 2.51%

*Dividend yields applicable to ordinary shares and based on Sept. 24, 2008 market close in Japan. Source: Yahoo! Finance Japan.

FD: No position in any stocks mentioned.