Tokyo’s markets were mixed on Wednesday’s session.
The Nikkei 225 was 0.56 percent lower to 15,358.39 and the Topix index fell 0.43 percent to 1,563.86, but the Mothers market added 2.21 percent to 923.56.
The banking sector was disturbed by the report concerning Merrill Lynch’s (NYSE: MER; TYO: 8675) writedowns.
Mitsubishi UFJ (TYO: 8306; NYSE: MTU) was down 0.8 percent to ¥1,038, while Sumitomo Mitsui (TYO: 8316) dropped 1.3 percent to ¥840,000 and Mizuho Financial (TYO: 8411; NYSE: MFG) fell 1.5 percent to ¥612,000.
Gainers on the session included Chugai Pharmaceutical (TYO: 4519), which added 5.3 percent to ¥1,897 after it reported that net income was up 8.5 percent in the third quarter.
Other gains came on broker upgrades.
Sumitomo Metal Industries (TYO: 5405) was up 2 percent to ¥601 and Sumitomo Chemical gained 4 percent to ¥1,031 after Daiwa upped its rating on the materials sector to “outperform”.
In the retail sector, Fast Retailing (TYO: 9983) jumped 6.8 percent to ¥7,040 after Merrill Lynch increased its recommendation from “neutral” to “buy”.