Japan stocks seen rising, Sharp and Honda a focus

TOKYO, Apr 27 (Reuters) Japanese stocks are seen rising on Thursday as investors focus on stocks with strong earnings prospects, such as Sharp Corp., ahead of another day or earnings announcements from top companies.

Honda Motor Co. Ltd. is likely to be a focus after it announced a 2-for-1 share split of its common stock on July 1 in addition to upbeat earnings results on brisk overseas sales, a weaker yen and accounting one-offs.

Sony Corp., Shiseido Co. Ltd., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., Hitachi Ltd., Fujitsu Ltd. and JFE Holdings Inc. are among major firms to announce full-year results and outlooks for the year to next March after the close of trading.

''Honda's share split was a total surprise -- a positive surprise to the market,'' said Kenichi Hirano, strategist at Tachibana Securities.

''I'm looking forward to seeing how the market will react to the news. I anticipate that Honda will help improve the market's sentiment,'' he said.

Traders expect the Nikkei average to move between 17,000 and 17,200 on Thursday. On Wednesday it gained 0.5 percent to 17,055.93.

In Chicago, Nikkei futures expiring in June closed at 17,110, a rise of 20 points from the Osaka finish.

Honda also projected a dividend of 60 yen per share for the new business year, an effective 20-yen rise from the pre-split 100 yen for last year. That in turn was up from 65 yen in 2004/05. However, it forecast weaker-than-expected earnings for this year.

Sharp, the world's largest maker of liquid crystal display televisions, said its quarterly profit jumped 21 percent on strong sales of LCD TVs and cellphones, and forecast a 10 percent rise to another record in this business year.

Canon Inc. is set to announce its first quarter earnings.

STOCKS TO WATCH -- Nippon Oil Corp.

Japan's biggest refiner said on Wednesday it expects pretax rofit to fall 56 percent this business year in reaction to huge gains related to oil stocks it booked last year after a price surge.

-- Daiwa Securities Group Inc. Japan's second-largest brokerage said on Wednesday its quarterly profit nearly tripled, as healthy sales of investment trusts and a strong performance by its underwriting business generated a better-than-expected earnings rise.

-- Advantest Corp.

The world's largest maker of microchip testers posted an 8.7 percent rise in net profit on Wednesday for last business year on active capacity expansion by chip makers, but forecast profit growth this year will be slower than expected.

-- Takefuji Corp.

The consumer finance firm reported a 31.7 percent drop in annual profit on Wednesday, citing falling loan volumes and payments to settle legal claims, but forecast earnings would rebound this year.

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