Nikkei up 0.9 pct, tech shares up after US earnings

TOKYO, Apr 18 (Reuters) The Nikkei average rose 0.88 percent on Wednesday with Advantest Corp. and other technology shares up after U.S. peers including microchip maker Intel Corp. reported solid earnings results.

Investors are also putting money in laggards such as real estate shares as there is a lack of big events coming for the domestic market to trade on, said Hiroyuki Fukunaga, chief strategist at Rakuten Securities.

''Investors' concern about buying technology stocks has eased after seeing good earnings results from similar overseas companies such as Intel and IBM,'' he said.

After the close in the United States, Intel reported quarterly results that were in line with expectations, despite a price war with rival AMD, and IBM's quarterly results also matched Wall Street estimates.

''The next big event is Japanese corporate earnings. Until then, global stocks are likely to largely influence stocks here.'' The Nikkei was up 153.64 points at 17,681.09 as of 0050 GMT.

The TOPIX added 0.74 percent to 1,728.79.

Technology shares rose with Advantest up 0.9 percent to 5,670 yen and Kyocera Corp. gaining 1.1 percent to 11,730 yen.

Shares of real estate companies advanced. Sumitomo Realty&Development Co. Ltd. was up 3.1 percent at 4,340 yen, while Mitsubishi Estate Co. Ltd. climbed 2.5 percent to 3,690 yen.

Among fallers, Pentax Corp. dropped 2.6 percent to 739 yen after Kyodo news agency reported the camera and medical equipment maker would reject a tender offer bid from Hoya Corp. Hoya has said it would likely offer 770 yen per share.

Hoya was flat at 3,910 yen.

Reuters SBA VP0655