Nikkei falls for 6th week, tech shares hurt
*Nikkei marks sixth straight week of falls
*High-tech shares hurt after Google results
*Investors wary, await more U.S. earnings
*Trading firms slip after oil's tumble
By Elaine Lies
TOKYO, July 18 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei stock average slipped 0.7 percent on Friday for its sixth straight week of falls as Kyocera Corp (6971.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and other tech shares dropped on disappointing results from Google Inc (GOOG.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz).
Mitsubishi Corp (8058.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and other trading houses slid after oil fell more than $15 dollars over the three previous days.
Early Tokyo gains on better-than-expected results from JPMorgan (JPM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) evaporated as investors took stock of after-the-bell results from Google, Microsoft (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and Merrill Lynch (MER.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) which all came in under expectations. More corporate U.S. earnings later in the day including Citigroup's (C.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) increased natural caution ahead of a three-day weekend.
"The big risk is that Wall Street will plunge, especially the Nasdaq -- the kind of move that Japanese stocks, with their dependence on high-tech shares, are really vulnerable to," said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Shinko Securities. "The market had factored in that U.S. financial firms would announce poor results, but nobody expected that the same thing could happen to high-techs. There's a lot of nervousness today." Continued...







