Nikkei falls

The Nikkei average dipped 0.23 percent on Tuesday as Kyocera Corp plunged after its earnings failed to impress investors, while US credit concerns and unsteady yen moves also weighed on the market.
Nippon Steel Corp and JFE Holdings declined after news that Japan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has started an investigation into the world's No 2 and No 4 steelmakers over possible violations of anti-monopoly rules in the market for construction-use steel.
Tsuyoshi Segawa, equity strategist at Shinko Securities, said investors probably found it hard to actively buy stocks on Tuesday, a peak day of the earnings season, before confirming results as shares that miss expectations even slightly are likely to be sold sharply, as has been seen recently.
"The external environment - US subprime mortgage problems and the aftermath of the defeat of Japan's ruling party - appear to have calmed down a bit for now, but now it's an earnings season and that is slowing investors," he said.
Akihito Yamanoi, general manager of AIG Global Investment Corp's (Japan) equity investment department, said, however, investors moved to take profits as they were still wary about the subprime loan problems and the unsteady yen moves.
Yamanoi also said the market seems to have factored in the defeat of Japan's ruling party in Sunday's election, but concern about the future of the country's political system is still lingering.
The Nikkei was down 40.41 points to end at 17,248.89. The broader TOPIX index inched up 0.03 percent to 1,706.18. The dollar was down 0.2 percent at 118.80 yen but off a 3-1/2-month low of 118.02 yen struck last week on electronic trading platform EBS.
Trade slowed with 2.1 billion shares changing hands, compared with an average daily volume of 2.3 billion in June. Advancing shares beat decliners by a ratio of nearly two to one. Kyocera tumbled 6.3 percent to 11,500 yen after UBS said Monday's results were as expected and lacked vigour, although Kyocera reported upbeat quarterly results and kept its full-year projections unchanged.
Shares of Nippon Steel Corp and JFE Holdings lost ground after news the FTC had started a probe. Nippon Steel fell 2 percent to 900 yen, while JFE retreated 1.7 percent to 8,210 yen.
Meanwhile, Olympus Corp jumped 6.1 percent to 4,910 yen on better-than-expected earnings, and Nikon Corp gained 5.5 percent to 3,820 yen on a Nikko Citigroup target price hike. That helped the precision machinery subindex to climb 3.1 percent.
After the closing bell, Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc slashed its annual profit outlook by 79 percent following the indefinite closure of its quake-hit nuclear power plant in Northwest Japan. The company is assuming the plant will be shut for the rest of the business year which ends in March.