<Nikkei is down about 2% after reporting economy shrank again>
This is why the Nikkei is down: It has nothing to do with economy shrinking; it's been doing that for years.
Tokyo stocks pulled lower by high-tech powerhouses
TOKYO, March 13 (Reuters) - Tokyo stocks fell by midday on Monday as high-tech heavyweights such as Sony Corp , Softbank Corp and Hikari Tsushin Inc extended their recent downtrend and dampened overall sentiment.
Traders said institutional investors were unloading such shares, which scored solid gains earlier in the year, to lock in a solid performance for their portfolios ahead of end-March book closings. The selling spooked individual investors out of the shares as well.
``No one knows when these high-tech issues are going to hit the floor and rebound,' said Hitoshi Ichio, strategist at Commerz Securities in Tokyo. ``Investors are thinking it's wiser to shift their money into cyclicals and wait for the market to come to a consensus on valuations for these Internet and high-tech issues.'
The benchmark Nikkei average fell 298.91 points or 1.51 percent to end the morning session at 19,451.49. The June futures contract <0#JNI:> fell 370 points to 19,470.
The capital-weighted TOPIX index (^TOPX - news) of all first-section shares fell 56.11 points or 3.44 percent to 1,577.19.
Sony, considered a bell-wether of Japan's high-tech sector, fell by its daily limit of 2,000 yen or 7.6 percent to 24,300, hit by renewed selling pressure after its home video-game unit said on Friday some of its new PlayStation2 game consoles had malfunctioned.
Internet investor Softbank was ask-only at 94,200 yen, down by its daily limit of 5,000.
Hikari Tsushin, another Internet investor and a leading mobile phone subscription agency, was also down by its daily limit of 5,000 yen and ask-only at 88,500.
Traders said Hikari Tsushin was under selling pressure after a magazine article last week painted a negative picture of its business practices. A spokeswoman said on Friday there were errors in the article and the company intended to file a complaint.
Losses in Hikari Tsushin discouraged buyers from Crayfish Co Ltd , an e-mail service provider in which it holds a 50.1 percent stake.
Crayfish was ask-only at 33.4 million yen at midday, still untraded since its launch on Friday on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's (TSE) Mothers market for venture firms.
Traders said losses in such shares had sparked a fear of heights in the overall market, turning investors away from key large-cap stocks such as telecoms giant Nippon Telegraph and Telephone (NTT) Corp and its mobile phone unit NTT Docomo .
NTT fell 60,000 yen or 4.2 percent to 1.37 million yen, while NTT Docomo fell by its daily limit of 380,000 yen or 9.79 percent to 3.5 million yen.
Investors instead shifted their money into cheaper cyclical shares in industries such as textiles and construction in morning trade.
Traders said the market's bullish long-term outlook for the economy was unfazed by slightly worse-than-expected gross domestic product (GDP) data announced shortly before the market opened.
GDP for October-December showed a decline of 1.4 percent from the previous quarter. Economists surveyed by Reuters last week had predicted a contraction of 1.0 percent.
Other indices and stocks on the move:
-- Declining shares marginally outnumbered gainers 635 to 613, with 144 issues unchanged on the TSE's first section.
Turnover was moderately heavy at 419.11 million shares on the first section, compared with 323.51 million in Monday morning trade last week.
-- The Nikkei 300 fell 2.24 percent to 300.65. The second section index dropped 4.47 percent to 2,752.98. The Nikkei over-the-counter index (^NOTC - news) slid 6.69 percent to 2,260.51 by late morning.
-- Among other active shares, Hitachi Ltd fell 101 yen or 7.4 percent to 1,263 after it warned on Friday that hefty restructuring costs this year would drag profits below its original targets.
The electronics manufacturer said it would incur a special loss of 64 billion yen from restructuring its information sector in the year to March 31, in addition to a 25 billion yen loss to clean up its pension liabilities.
-- Video game makers Sega Enterprises and Nintendo Co Ltd both fell by their daily limits, pressured by last week's news that Microsoft Corp (NasdaqNM:MSFT - news) plans to start selling a video game player in 2001.
Sega fell 400 yen or 17.62 percent to 1,870. Nintendo Co Ltd fell 2,000 yen, or 10.47 percent, to 17,100.
-- Mitsubishi Motors Corp rose 25 yen or 6.58 percent to 405 after weekend media reports it was ready to sell a 34 percent controlling minority stake to DaimlerChrysler AG .
The company declined to comment, saying nothing concrete had been decided. |
