Resisting the trend to gains in the Asia-Pacific region, Tokyo equities markets were lower on Wednesday.
The Nikkei 225 traded about even at 15,900.64, while the Topix index dropped 0.3 percent to 1,544.89 and the Mothers market fell 0.02 percent to 703.56.
Exporters were lower as it was announced that Japan’s trade surplus dropped in July for the first time in 9 months.
The surplus fell by 21.1 percent from a year earlier as exports grew by 11.7 percent but imports were up by 16.9 percent.
Optical glass maker Hoya (TYO: 7741; OTC: HOCP) dropped 1.5 percent to ¥3,890.
In the semiconductors sector, Advantest (TYO: 6857; NYSE: ATE) fell 0.9 percent to ¥4,220.
The automobile manufacturing sector was also hit by negative broker comment as Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) dropped its full-year profits forecast for several carmakers.
Toyota (TYO: 7203.T; NYSE: TM; LSE: TYT) was 0.5 percent lower to ¥6,550, while Honda Motor (TYO: 7267; NYSE: HMC) fell 1.1 percent to ¥3,630 and Nissan was down 1.5 percent to ¥1,107.
Banks were lower on fears that losses in the subprime crisis, so far fairly muted there, could increase as well as on new data that showed bank lending up at its slowest rate in almost a year and a half in July.
Mitsubishi UFJ (TYO: 8306; NYSE: MTU) and Sumitomo Mitsui (TYO: 8316) each were 1.8 percent lower, to ¥1.08 million and ¥884,000 respectively, while Resona Holdings (TYO: 8308) dropped 3.4 percent to ¥229,000.
Gains came for companies that benefited from the news that crude oil prices were lower.
Japan Airlines (TYO: 9205) added 4.2 percent to ¥250.