Nikkei falls for second day on eurozone concerns
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Japan's Nikkei Stock Average fell for a second day Friday as anxiety about debt-ridden Greece and fears other European countries might be heading in a similar direction dampened investor sentiment, although losses were capped by high hopes for Japanese firms' quarterly results as earnings season swings into full gear next week.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average dropped 34.63 points, or 0. 32 percent, from Thursday to 10,914.46.
The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange closed largely unchanged, rising 0.03 point to 978.20.
Greece's growing debt troubles, evident in the international ratings agency Moody's Investors Service downgrading its rating on the country by one level to A3, as it potentially heads towards default, were highlighted by brokers as souring investor sentiment on the last day of the trading week, but not enough to spark a broad sell-off.
Analysts said that investors were still optimistic about upcoming earnings reports from major Japanese firms and this sense of optimism was underpinning the market despite increasing troubles in the eurozone as Portugal and Spain show signs of credit shortcomings, potential further tightening of China's real estate sector, as well as financial regulations in the U.S.
The European Union's statistics office revealed the total budget shortfall for the 16-nation euro region widened to 6.3 percent of gross domestic product last year, the most since the single currency euro was introduced in 1999.
"Compared to the first week of April, there's a lot more uncertainty, so sentiment has definitely worsened a bit," said Hideyuki Ishiguro, strategist at Okasan Securities.
"While it does appear that Greece will be supported, the problems are leaving a poor impression, and there's also concern over China and whether there will be more government moves."
Other market players maintained that investors were simply taking a wait-and-see-approach in the wake of fraud allegations against U.S. investment banking giant Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and ahead of further discussions between Athens, the EU and the IMF and the G-20 meeting, which consists of the world's key economies.
Individual issues rose on business performance with Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd. adding 1.3 percent to 471 yen after raising its operating profit estimate to 19.5 billion yen (208.70 million dollars) from 15 billion yen (160.54 million U.S. dollars), citing growth across a broad range of products including semiconductors and electronics.
Toshiba Corp. rose 0.2 percent to 532 yen after saying it would beat its operating profit estimate for the business year just ended in March by 17 percent, beating market expectations.
Honda Motor Co. Ltd. rose more than 1 percent to 3,215 yen following a report in Japanese business daily The Nikkei that the automaker's operating profit nearly doubled in the business year just ended.
Operating profit probably jumped 90 percent to 360 billion yen (3.85 billion U.S. dollars) for the year ended March 31, helped by "strong" demand in emerging markets, the newspaper reported.
Mitsui Fudosan Co. Ltd, the nation's largest property developer, advanced 1.4 percent to 1,634 yen after The Nikkei reported the company may post net income for the year ended March 31 that is higher than the firm originally forecast.
Tech and export-issues slipped as the euro hit a one-year low on worries Greece will default, with Kyocera Corp. losing 1.3 percent and Tokyo Electron Ltd. also dropping 1.3 percent to 6,280 yen. TDK Corp. retreated 1.5 percent to close the week at 6,070 yen.
Some 1.99 billion shares changed hands on the Tokyo exchange's first section, down from Thursday's volume of around 2.17 billion shares.
Advancing issues outnumbered declining ones by 958 to 549.
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