Japanese market closes lower, led by property stocks and exporters

The Japanese market closed lower on Wednesday, extending Tuesday's losses. Investors remained cautious ahead of a series of key economic data scheduled for release on Thursday and Friday in the U.S. and Japan.

The market traded weak in the morning session after Wall Street provided a mixed lead, but recovered some ground in the afternoon session. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index closed down 25.75 points or 0.2% at 12,752.96 and the broader Topix index slipped 5.66 points or 0.5% to finish at 1,223.69. In the currency market, the dollar fell to lower 109-yen levels in late Tokyo deals from mid 109-yen levels in early trade and upper 109-yen levels late Tuesday. On the economic front, traders had little economic data to digest on Wednesday. In the U.S., traders await durable goods orders and GDP numbers on Thursday and Friday respectively, while Japan will announce its July consumer price index, jobless rate, household spending and other data on Friday. Property stocks fell after home builder Sohken Homes said Tuesday that it had filed for court protection and exporters declined as the yen strenghtened agains the dollar. Sohken Homes tumbled 12. 4 %, Nomura Real Estate Holdings lost 2.8%, Mitsubishi Estate dropped 2.1% and Sumitomo Realty & Development plunged 2.9%. Among exporters, Toyota Motor fell 2.7%, Nissan Motor plummeted 4.7%, Minebea lost 1.0%, Komatsu lost 2.6%, Sony gave away 1.4% and Canon slipped 0.2%. In the financial sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group declined 0.4%, Mizuho Financial Group lost 0.7%, and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group dropped 0.8%. Top brokerage Nomura Holdings closed unchanged, while Daiwa Securities Group gave away 2.2%. Sompo Japan Insurance gained 1.5% and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance surged 3.9%. Oil and gas miner, Inpex Holdings advanced 1.2%, Nippon Mining Holdings gained 1.6% and Nippon Oil added 0.3% on higher oil prices. In the tech sector, Advantest closed flat, Fanuc gained 1.0%, and Kyocera edged up 0.3%, while Matsushita Electrical Industrial dropped 1.6% and NEC fell 1.6%. Mitsubishi Electric gained 0.8% after a Nikkei report said that Japan's third-largest integrated maker of electronics products plans to invest more than 10 billion yen and nearly triple its production capacity for highly efficient solar cells by the end of March 2012. Copyright(c) 2008 RealTimeTraders.com, Inc. All Rights Reserved