Nikkei up as recent losers gain, China stocks eyed

TOKYO, Mar 19 (Reuters) The Nikkei average rose 0.59 percent on Monday as investors picked up recent losers such as chip gear maker Advantest Corp., but bank shares continued to slide on concerns about their earnings results.

Investors are also awaiting the open of the Shanghai market after China's central bank raised interest rates over the weekend for the third time in less than a year, said Zenshiro Mizuno, senior managing director of Marusan Securities' equity trading division.

''Gains will be limited for Tokyo stocks as long as bank shares keep falling,'' he said. ''Another focus of the market is a U.S.

Federal Reserve meeting as investors hope to get a hint on the U.S.

economic outlook, which would affect Japanese stocks.'' Mizuno said investors are likely to pay little attention to the Bank of Japan's two-day policy meeting that starts on Monday. The central bank raised interest rates last month.

The Fed, which also meets for two days, will announce its decision on Wednesday.

The dollar slipped to 116.55 yen down 0.1 percent from late New York trade last week but clawing back from a low near 116.25 yen struck in early trade.

The Nikkei was up 99.49 points at 16,843.64 as of 0046 GMT. The broad TOPIX index rose 0.26 percent to 1,681.50.

Among stocks that were sold, Hitachi Ltd. lost 2.7 percent to 840 yen after the company said on Friday it expects to post a parent-only net loss of 200 billion yen for this business year, down from its previous estimate of a 55 billion yen loss due to appraisal losses on its hard disk drive operations.

But Terumo Corp. rose 1.4 percent to 4,300 yen after the Nikkei business daily reported at the weekend that the medical device maker would beat its own earnings forecasts for this business year due to robust demand for its catheters.

Advantest added 2.3 percent to 5,340 yen, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc. declined 2.8 percent to 1.04 million yen.

REUTERS SBA PM0637