Nikkei 225 and TOPIX Index Down Slightly Tuesday on Profit Taking Against Heavy Volume (MLEA, NIPNY, CAJ, SNE, NMR, HIT, PIO, SANYY, KUB, MTU, TMIC)

After last week's impressive run both the Nikkei 225 and TOPIX have been unable to gain much ground this week. Profit taking, which was to be expected, is happening but is largely being offset by bargain hunters. This has led to high trading volumes and a record volume was achieved on the TOPIX 1st Section, of 4.55 billion shares, easily surpassing the 3.7 billion shares traded last Wednesday. (Reuters) The JASDAQ failed to gain for the first time in 12-days.

The Nikkei 225 lost 24.87 points (-0.18%) to close at 14,036.73. The key for the Nikkei is staying above 14,000. Just as 13,000 was a psychological barrier, so too is 14,000, a position we had not seen for 4-years. The market sentiment in Tokyo and also by foreign investors remains bullish. We have seen much larger corrections over the past few months on similar surges like the one experienced last week on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.

The TOPIX Index lost 1.59 points (-0.11%) to close at 1,497.53. Despite opening above 1,500 and twice having risen above that point in afternoon trading, the TOPIX failed to close above 1,500 for the second consecutive day. Nonetheless, the same applies to the TOPIX as stated above for the Nikkei 225. The 1,500 mark is a huge psychological barrier but the TOPIX is in a good position to advance above it, something we had not seen for over 5-years.

The JASDAQ lost 0.32 points (-0.30%) to close at 107.02. It was unable to close higher for a 13th consecutive day as it traded lower the entire day.

(Tokyo shares with ADRs) Gainers today include: Millea Holdings (ticker: MLEA) +3.23% following a 1.4% gain yesterday, NEC Corp (ticker: NIPNY) was up 2.17%, Canon (ticker: CAJ) +0.97%, Sony (ticker: SNE) +0.77%, Nomura Holdings (ticker: NMR) +0.5%, and Hitachi (ticker: HIT) +0.41%.

(Tokyo shares with ADRs) Decliners were led by Pioneer (ticker: PIO) -2.91%, Sanyo Electric (ticker: SANYY) -2.48% offsetting yesterday's +2.55% gain, Kubota Corp (ticker: KUB) -1.91%, which was also down yesterday -3.88%, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (ticker: MTU) -1.82%, which fell with other banks on broad profit taking, and lastly, Trend Micro was down -1.32% after a gain of +1.61% yesterday.