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TOKYO

THE NIKKEI 225 average finished sightly down yesterday, falling 53.33 points or 0.33 per cent to close at 16,177.19 as a cautious mood spread amid scepticism over a rebound on Wall Street and little investor confidence at home.

Tetsuya Ishijima, chief strategist at Okasan Securities Co Ltd, said: "If New York falls Tokyo stocks fall on fears that weakness in the US economy will curb Japanese exports to the US, but when New York rises, buying Japanese blue chips is not necessarily the logical conclusion."