LONDON (ShareCast) - The Nikkei traded flat on Wednesday, erasing bigger gains earlier in the session, as buyers paused ahead of the company results season.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 (news)
index closed up 7 points at 9,269 in Tokyo.
The Bank of Japan, as expected, kept interest rates on hold and voted to extend its company credit programme to December.
While the BoJ said the country's "economic conditions have stopped worsening," it also said the economy would shrink 3.4%, bigger than previous predictions of a 3.1% contraction.
Concern about the economic outlook and profit taking weighed on financials. Mizuho Financial fell 4% to 190 yen. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial also fell.
Better than expected results from Intel (NASDAQ: INTC - news) however gave stocks like Tokyo Electron (Frankfurt: 865510 - news) and Advantest Corp a boost.
Japanese exporters were mostly higher as the yen weakened against major currencies. Honda, Canon (Berlin: CNN1.BE - news) and Sony (Munich: 853687 - news) were in demand.
The Hang Seng advanced on Wednesday, bolstered by good results from the US heavyweights Intel and Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS - news) . China Mobile (0941.HK - news) advanced while banking stocks such as HSBC (LSE: HSBA.L - news) were also in demand.
Other stocks on the move included Air China, up over 6% to HK$4.20 after it said it expects an annual profit increase of 50% in the first half of 2009.
The Hang Seng index closed up 375 points at 18,261 in Hong Kong.
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