"We had a market tailwind," Chief Financial Officer Takumi Kitamura told a media briefing. Nomura's April-June profit came in at 23.33 billion yen ($163.42 million) versus 1.696 billion yen a year earlier, when fears of slowing global economic growth hit financial markets and forced investment portfolio writedowns at the Japanese firm. In contrast to the strong gains at the retail business, Nomura's wholesale division, which houses its investment banking and trading businesses, posted a pretax profit of just 2.1 billion yen, down sharply from 25.3 billion yen a year earlier. The Bank of Japan's relaxation of its cap on bond yields last week could also be "a major tailwind" to its business, as it is likely to increase market volatility, he said. ($1 = 142.7600 yen)Reporting by Makiko Yamazaki; Editing by Himani Sarkar and Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Persons: Takumi Kitamura, Nomura's, Kentaro Okuda, Kitamura, Makiko Yamazaki, Himani Sarkar, Mark Potter Organizations: Nomura Holdings Inc, of, Energy, NTT Group, Thomson Locations: TOKYO