Nikkei ends almost flat

Japan's Nikkei share average ended almost flat on Monday after a three-day winning streak, with gains by exporters like Honda Motor Co Ltd offseting declines in insurers such as Millea Holdings Inc In thin trade Japan's three largest banks, including Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, extended gains, all rising more than 2 percent.
The market spent most of the session in positive territory as investors saw some shares as bargains following the recent sell-off. "The market has temporarily resumed its calm following the Federal Reserve's rate cut and other actions," said Harushige Kobayashi, head of the research department at Maruwa Securities. "But the subprime problems are not over yet, and gains in thin trade are not sustainable," he added.
The Tokyo stock exchange said turnover on the first section in both volume and value terms hit the lowest for this year, excluding a half-day session on January 4 and renewing the low touched on Friday when many investors held off bets between holidays.
"Trading volume is not building up. There are few big players out there now. Foreign investors are also absent," said Norio Shimura, deputy chief of the equities department at Chuo Securities. "Participants are mostly retail investors who are after dividends, and dealers."
The market largely shrugged off a government survey that showed big Japanese manufacturers' confidence in business conditions sank to a new low in the three months to March. The benchmark Nikkei average ended down 2.48 points at 12,480.09. The broader TOPIX index rose 0.3 percent to 1,224.15. Honda rose 2.6 percent to 2,950 yen, the biggest contributor to the Nikkei, while Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group gained 2.5 percent to 914 yen. Millea shed 4.4 percent to 3,710 yen, one of the biggest drags on the Nikkei. Insurers are among the shares that had gained sharply in recent sessions.
As investors have grown increasingly worried about corporate earnings amid a worsening economic outlook, firms that cut their profit forecasts were punished with heavy selling. The day's three biggest percentage losers on the Tokyo stock exchange's first section all gave profit warnings last week.
Impress Holdings Inc plunged 12.5 percent to 10,800 yen after the media firm slashed its full-year earnings outlook and decided not to pay an annual dividend due to weaker-than-expected sales and advertising revenue from its magazine business.
Construction firm Maeda Corp slid 11.8 percent to 269 yen and electronics parts maker Japan Aviation Electronics Industry Ltd plunged 11.3 percent to 751 yen. Both firms have cut their full-year forecasts. Nippon Suisan Kaisha lost 7.4 percent to 386 yen after Japan's No 2 fisheries firm roughly halved its operating profit forecast for the year to March 31 to 7 billion yen.
Goodwill Group Inc was untraded due to a glut of buy orders with bids at its daily limit high of 13,700 yen, up 17.1 percent from Friday's close, after staffing firm United Technology Holdings Co said on Friday it had bought 30 percent of the scandal-hit rival.
Shares of United Technology, traded on the Jasdaq start-up market, plummeted 15.1 percent to 169,000 yen. Trade was thin on the Tokyo exchange's first section, with 1.6 billion shares changing hands, compared with last week's daily average of 2.2 billion. Advancing stocks beat declining ones by 874 to 729.