Japan Nikkei falls on profit booking

Headline indices of the Japan share market closed marginally lower after wiping out early gains on Thursday, 14 March 2019, as investors elected to book profit after China reported a mixed bag of data that renewed concerns about the global economy. Total 22 subsectors of the 33 subsectors of the Tokyo Stock Exchange declined, with shares in Chemicals, Textiles & Apparels, Marine Transportation, Glass & Ceramics Products, Air Transportation, and Electric Appliances issues being notable losers, whereas shares in Oil & Coal Products, Pulp & Paper, Fishery, Agriculture & Forestry, Securities & Commodities Futures issues were notable losers. At closing bell, the 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average declined 3.32 points, or 0.02%, at 21,287.02. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange dropped 3.78 points, or 0.24%, at 1,588.29.

Shares of cyclical companies were lower, with Advantest Corp tumbling 2.9%, TDK Corp and Panasonic Corp both sliding 1.5%.

Shares of shipping firms also fell, with Kawasaki Kisen down 3.1% and Mitsui OSK Lines off 0.6%.

SoftBank Group Corp jumped 1.3% on reports that the company and Toyota Motor Corp are in talks to invest $1 billion or more in the self-driving vehicle unit of Uber Technologies Inc's.

Semiconductor equipment maker Samco Inc tumbled 11% after the company cut its net profit forecast to 350 million yen from 640 million yen due to weak orders for chip equipment.

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