Tokyo's Nikkei lost just over one percent on Tuesday, closing lower for a fourth straight session as nagging worries on the outlook for corporate earnings and continued losses in US tech shares again hit local tech issues. Investors dumped Seiko Epson Corp, the world's second-largest printer maker, ahead of its quarterly earnings announcement after the bell.
Concerns that first-quarter earnings and outlooks might fail to satisfy investors also weighed on other technology stocks like Advantest Corp.
Meanwhile, late selling also hit banks, miners and other stocks that rely on domestic business as market bearishness triggered stop-loss selling among individual players to stop further margin calls.
Tachibana Securities' adviser Masaharu Sakudo said the market's latest bearish performance made investors increasingly cautious and such nervousness was causing more selling.
The benchmark Nikkei average fell 128.01 points or 1.15 percent to close at 11,031.54 - its lowest close since June 3, when it ended at 11,027.05.
The Nikkei, which has fallen 402 points in a losing streak that began last Thursday, is just below its 200-day moving average of 11,032.08. The 200-day moving average is often considered a bearish support line. The broader TOPIX index closed down 1.11 percent at 1,114.39, its lowest close since May 20, when it ended at 1,104.89.
Suggesting shake-out selling by investors, the Nikkei Jasdaq average fell 2.68 percent to 1,896.54, its lowest close since June 8. The fall was its biggest since May 17, when it lost 5.44 percent.
Trading volume picked up, with 1.083 billion shares changing hands on the first section, the highest total since July 16 and up from 845 million shares, the year-to-date low, on Monday. Decliners far outnumbered gainers 1,320 to 165.
Seiko Epson sank 4.02 percent to 4,060 yen.
After the closing bell, Seiko Epson posted a 130 percent rise in quarterly operating profit and raised its full-year earnings forecast, thanks to brisk demand for liquid crystal display (LCD) driver chips and projector-use LCDs.
NEC Electronics Corp, a semiconductor unit of NEC Corp, lost 0.72 percent to 5,500 yen. The company said after the market closed that its quarterly profit grew 43 percent thanks to robust demand for chips used in DVD recorders and other digital consumer products. Advantest Corp, the world's top maker of memory chip testers, slipped 3.59 percent to 6,180 yen.
Advantest, along with other tech giants such as Sony Corp and NEC, will report quarterly earnings on Wednesday.
Bucking the market's losses, Yoshinoya D&C Co Ltd, Japan's largest beef-bowl restaurant chain, rallied 5.23 percent to 181,000 yen after Goldman Sachs said on Monday it had added Yoshinoya to its current investment list and raised its rating to "Outperform" from "In-Line" with a target price of 240,000 yen.
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