Reuters: Financial Services and Real Estate: Nikkei retreats further from 1-year high; Sharp rises

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Nikkei retreats further from 1-year high; Sharp rises Mar 29th 2012, 03:13 Wed Mar 28, 2012 11:13pm EDT * Nikkei falls for second day in a row * Still on track for best Q1 performance in 14 years * Sharp surges in heavy volume; shippers gain By Dominic Lau TOKYO, March 29 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei share average fell 0.8 percent on Thursday, slipping further from a one-year high hit earlier this week as investors lock in gains from what is shaping up as its best January-March quarterly performance in 14 years. The Nikkei has rallied 19.5 percent since the start of January, buoyed by a run of strong U.S. economic data and accommodative monetary policies by central banks, and investors are cashing in with the approach of the Japanese fiscal year-end. "We saw a lot of profit-taking in the U.S. and other overseas markets, we saw a couple of macro data points weaker than expected, so we have a little bit of profit-taking," a sales trader at a foreign bank said. In the United States, new orders for long-lasting factory goods increased only modestly in February, supporting the view that economic growth in the first quarter could be lackluster. After 12 straight weeks of buying, foreign investors sold a net 242.7 billion yen ($2.93 billion) of Japanese stocks for the week through March 24, data from Japan's Ministry of Finance showed. By the midday break, the Nikkei eased 79.51 points to 10,103.06, after losing 0.7 percent on Wednesday as the deadline passed for investors to buy stocks in most companies and still get rights to the current financial year's dividend. Helping to ease the ex-dividend impact on Japanese equities, the Bank of Japan on Wednesday bought 26.6 billion yen worth of exchange traded funds to support the market. "New York fell overnight and if you look at the forex rate it is tipping towards a stronger yen, so I think the market is in a bit of an adjustment today," said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Daiwa Securities. Exporters, sensitive to the Japanese currency, suffered, with Toyota Motor Corp off 1.7 percent, Honda Motor Corp losing 2 percent and industrial robot maker Fanuc Corp down 1.8 percent. SHARP SHINES Topping the list of most actively traded stocks was Sharp Corp, which climbed 6.5 percent to a two-month high, extending the previous session's more than 15 percent surge after it said this week it will issue shares worth $808 million to Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry. Despite the rally, Sharp was still not yet in "overbought" territory with its 14-day relative index at 65.8, below the 70 threshold that signals a stock may be poised to fall. The broader Topix fell 0.9 percent to 856.98. Trading volume on the main board after the morning session was at the mid-point of its full daily average for the past 90 days. Shippers were also in demand, up 1.1 percent and the best sectoral performer after the Baltic's capesize index turned positive following 20 straight flat or lower sessions, bolstered by expectations of demand recovery in top consumer China. Kawasaki Kisen Kaisha Ltd climbed 2.3 percent, while Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd gained 0.8 percent and Kyoei Tanker Co Ltd rose 3.2 percent. However, Tokyu Corp fell 2 percent after Nomura cut its rating on Japan's leading railway operator to "neutral" from "buy", saying the company now looked less undervalued. According to Thomson Reuters Datastream, Tokyu carried a 12-month forward price-to-earnings ratio of 16.7, compared with rival East Japan Railway's 11.7 and the Topix land transport index's 13.7. Link this Share this Digg this Email Reprints

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