Nikkei down 1 pct as semiconductor shares fall

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By David Dolan

TOKYO, Feb 7 (Reuters) - The Nikkei share average slid 1 percent in morning trade on Wednesday as semiconductor stocks such as Advantest Corp. (6857.T) extended recent losses after their earnings results disappointed investors.

The chip sell-off even hit shares of Tokyo Electron Ltd. (8035.T), which said on Tuesday its quarterly operating profit more than doubled. [ID:nT269775]

"As a whole earnings results from chip-gear makers have not been that good," said Katsuhiko Kodama, senior strategist at Toyo Securities. "Tokyo Electron's earnings results were really strong, but it has been dragged down by its peers."

Konami Corp. (9766.T) jumped nearly 5 percent after its earnings results prompted brokerage Credit Suisse to lift its rating on the game maker to "outperform" from "neutral".

The Nikkei .N225 finished the morning down 168.18 points at 17,238.68. The broader TOPIX index was down 0.47 percent at 1,724.29.

Advantest, the world's largest supplier of microchip testers, slid 4.6 percent to 5,420 yen, having already fallen nearly 14 percent in the past month. The company posted a drop in quarterly profit late last month and lowered its full-year forecast

Tokyo Electron dropped 2.7 percent to 8,380 yen.

Konami rose 4.9 percent to 3,240 yen after posting a gain in quarterly operating profit, after an improvement in its sports club and gaming divisions offset a decline in its mainstay digital entertainment business.

Shares of Toyota Motor Corp. (7203.T) were unchanged at 7,960 yen. Toyota, the world's most profitable auto maker, posted a near 20 percent rise in quarterly profit on Tuesday and kept its forecasts for a seventh straight year of record earnings intact.[ID:nT272454]

EYE ON FUTURES

Nikkei futures JNIc1 ended the morning down nearly 1.1 percent in Osaka.

"I think you can say the spot market is being impacted by futures at the moment," said Hideyuki Suzuki, investment information manager at SBI Securities.

Share prices can be sensitive to swings in the futures market as some investors engage in arbitrage as they attempt to profit from price disparities between markets.

Shares of Asahi Breweries Ltd. (2502.T) rose 4.6 percent to 2,000 yen after it said on Tuesday it will pay $138 million to take a 10 percent stake in tomato sauce maker Kagome Co. Ltd. (2811.T) and will adopt poison pill defence measures against possible hostile takeover bids.