TOKYO: Japanese stocks swung between gains and losses as a report showed machine orders unexpectedly shrank in August while Chinese markets rose after the country’s week-long holiday.
Retailers led declines after Aeon Co. maintained its full-year forecasts even as first-half operating profit grew more than estimated. Shares of the mall operator sank 5.8 percent. Hino Motors Ltd. tumbled 3.4 percent after Credit Suisse Group AG cut its rating on the truckmaker. Murata Manufacturing Co. dropped 0.8 percent after its chief executive officer told Reuters he expects the smartphone market to slow on weaker Chinese demand. Paper product makers were the biggest gainers among the Topix index’s 33 industry groups after the Nikkei newspaper reported Hokuetsu Kishu Paper Co.’s first-half operating profit will be about 4 billion yen, sending shares 2.4 percent higher.
The Topix fell 0.4 percent to 1,487.95 as of 12:40 p.m. in Tokyo, swinging from a gain of 0.4 percent. Five stocks fell for every two that rose. The Nikkei 225 Stock Average dropped 0.7 percent to 18,188.31. The MSCI All-Country World Index jumped 1 percent Wednesday for a sixth day of gains, its longest advance since April. Chinas markets, trading for the first time since Sept. 30, rose more than 3 percent.
“There might be some reactionary selling after recent gains, and the Nikkei 225 might fall below 18,000, but we’re still in a more risk-on state rather than a risk-off state, so I expect equities to remain stable,” Mitsushige Akino, executive officer at Ichiyoshi Asset Management Co. in Tokyo, said by phone. “The Chinese market’s likely to rise and would help in supporting Japanese shares as well.”
