Tokyo stocks close down 1.5%

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

TOKYO, Feb. 2 (Chinese media) -- Tokyo stocks closed lower Monday, extending their losing streak for a second trading day as investors remained worried about the grim economic outlook after a number of leading companies released worse-than-expected earnings reports last week.

The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 120.07 points, or 1.50 percent, from Friday to 7,873.98.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was down 16.18 points, or 2.04 percent, to 777.85.

Major Japanese exporters including Hitachi, NEC, Toshiba, Sony and Honda all revised downward their earnings forecast of this financial year which ends in March, sending their shares down for the second trading day.

Hitachi plunged 50 yen, or more than 17 percent, to 244 yen, after the Japanese electronics giant said Friday it expects to incur its worst-ever group net loss of 700 billion yen for fiscal 2008.

NEC was down 14 yen, or nearly 6 percent, to 231 yen, after saying Friday it will cut more than 20,000 jobs worldwide by the end of March next year as it is likely to incur 290 billion yen in group net losses for the current business year.

Toshiba lost 33 yen, or over 10 percent, to 285 yen, after saying Thursday it expects its largest-ever group net and operating losses of 280 billion yen each for the current business year.

On the First Section, declining issues outnumbered advancing ones 1,101 to 497, with 115 others remaining unchanged.

Trading volume on the main section came to 2,031.36 million shares, up from Friday's 1,965.83 million.

The TSE's Second Section index was down 10.20 points, or 0.54 percent, to 1,881.39 on a volume of 21.21 million shares. On the Osaka Securities Exchange, the near-term March Nikkei 225 index futures contract was down 70 points to 7,870.