 "Nikkei suffers longest losing streak since November")
Japan's Nikkei average fell for a fourth straight session on Thursday, its worst losing streak since November, just before Prime Minister Shinzo Abe began promising to revive growth, dubbed as "Abenomics" that has spurred a massive stock rally.
The Nikkei lost 0.8% to end at 13,694.04 points, a one-week low, after weak U.S. data heightened worries about the recovery in the world's largest economy.
Japanese financial markets will be closed on Friday and Monday for public holidays, and reopen on Tuesday.
"The global economy is quite weak," said Hisao Matsuura, an equity strategist at Nomura Securities. "I would not be surprised to see the Nikkei go down to 13,000."
He added the latest quarterly earnings remained weak as sharp depreciation in the yen since late last year had not yet led to a bigger benefit for export-driven companies.
A number of Japanese firms, including industrial robot maker Fanuc Corp , semiconductor equipment maker Tokyo Electron Ltd and Honda Motor Co , have disappointed investors with their earnings forecasts for the current fiscal year ending March 2014, despite a 21% slide in the yen since mid-November.
During the same period, the benchmark Nikkei has rallied 58% on expectations that the yen weakness would spark sharp earnings growth for exporters. Japanese equities now carry a 12-month forward return on equity of 8.3%, a level not seen since September 2008, data from Thomson Reuters Datastream showed.
Of the 61 Nikkei companies that have reported quarterly results as of Wednesday, 52 % of them either beat or met market expectations, according to Thomson Reuters StarMine. That compared with 62% which missed in the previous quarter.
Toyota Motor Corp lost 1.1% on Thursday and was the sixth-most traded stock on the main board by turnover after data showed its U.S. light vehicle sales fell 1.1% year-on-year last month. Toyota shares are still up nearly 80% since mid-November.
"We are seeing some selling out of the yen-name automotives on the back of U.S. auto sales, which were weaker than expected," a senior dealer at a foreign brokerage said.
Nissan Motor Co dropped 2% and Suzuki Motor Corp shed 3.4%.
SOFT PATCH
The latest U.S. data showed that companies had hired the fewest employees in seven months in April, boding ill for the key nonfarm payrolls data due out on Friday, and that manufacturing growth had slowed to a crawl.
Investors have also been pocketing gains after the Nikkei -- which rose to a near five-year high last week - failed to breach technical resistance at 13,988, the 61.8% retracement of its slide from February 2007 to October 2008.
BNP Paribas' proprietary model showed it picked Japan as one of the equity indexes to short with a one-month horizon, it said in a note. The other countries on which the model had a negative view were Austria, Mexico and South Korea, while it suggested going long France, Italy, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The broader Topix index eased 0.4 % to 1,153.28, with trading volume hitting a one-month low of 2.74 billion shares.
Daiwa Securities Group , Japan's second-largest brokerage, shed 2. % even after the firm posted its highest quarterly profit in seven years on Wednesday. The stock had rallied 31.6% in April, its best monthly performance since November 1998.
Index heavyweight Fast Retailing Co Ltd fell 1.8 % ahead of the release of its casual clothing chain Uniqlo's Japan same-store sales data in April. After the closing bell, it said Uniqlo's same store sales fell 3% year-on-year last month.
Sharp Corp and Takeda Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, however, bucked the market fall.
Sharp climbed 5% after the Nikkei newspaper said Mizuho Corporate bank and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ were considering a roughly 100 billion yen credit facility to help the struggling consumer electronics maker meet an upcoming bond redemption.
Takeda advanced 2.3% after the drugmaker said a U.S. court had nullified a $6.5 million jury verdict over its Actos diabetes drug.