Investors turn cautious; Nikkei down 0.15 pc

Tokyo, Oct 17: The Nikkei average retreated from a five-month high on Tuesday, dropping 0.15 percent as investors turned cautious ahead of the start of corporate earnings season in Japan and the United States.

Recent gainers such as Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and TDK Corp. were among the decliners, but energy firms such as INPEX Holdings Inc.

advanced on higher oil prices.

Investors were taking a cautious tack ahead of earnings results from U.S. tech bellwether Intel Corp. later in the day and results from corporate Japan next week, said Tatsuyuki Kawasaki, director of equities trading at Kaneyama Securities.

''We're right before the earnings peak,'' Kawasaki said.

''Stocks have been bought on the expectations of higher earnings.

But if results come in as forecast, or slightly below forecast, investors are likely to punish stocks. Therefore, it's wait-and-see right now.'' The Nikkei was down 25.03 points at 16,667.73 as of 0057 GMT. On Monday it booked its highest close since May. The broader TOPIX index was down 0.23 percent at 1,642.23.

Honda Motor fell 1.7 percent to 4,110 yen. Shares of the company have risen some 8.6 percent in the last month.

Likewise, TDK dropped 1.2 percent to 9,760 yen. The maker of electronic components has risen more than 9 percent in the last month.

Energy firms such as INPEX advanced after oil prices rose more than to nearly a barrel on Monday. Shares of INPEX added 1.9 percent to 955,000 yen.

Shares of Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. were flat at 7,690 yen, outperforming the Nikkei.

Business daily Nihon Keizai said the firm's recurring profit will likely exceed 500 billion yen for the first time in 2006/07 thanks to strong sales of its Actos diabetes medicine.

REUTERS