TOKYO, Aug 31 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei average is expected to slip on Tuesday after a bounce the day before as investors take profits following a fall in U.S. stocks, shrugging off a Bank of Japan decision.
U.S. stocks fell in the year's lightest volume on Monday as worries about the pace of economic recovery overshadowed data showing a rise in consumer spending and incomes.
U.S. consumer spending rose at the strongest pace in four months in July, but expectations that data on Friday will confirm that the economy shed jobs in August kept investors sidelined.
"U.S. stocks were a bit overbought at the end of the week last week, making them vulnerable to profit-taking on Monday, as were Japanese shares," said Kenichi Hirano, operating officer at Tachibana Securities.
"With a slew of indicators due out this week, many of them expected to be bad, any rises in the U.S. stock market will be quickly met by profit-taking, and the same will happen in Japan."
At an emergency meeting on Monday, the BOJ expanded its fund supply tool to try to curb a rise in the yen that is threatening a fragile economic recovery.
The benchmark Nikkei jumped over 3 percent and nearly 300 points before the announcement, but subsequently trimmed gains on disappointment to close up 1.8 percent.
Market players said this disappointment, reflected in the dollar's retreat against the yen below 85 yen, would continue to weigh on the Nikkei on Tuesday, with exporters set to be hit by selling.
"The dollar's already back down below 85 yen again, the BOJ move was pretty clearly ineffective. They need to do something targeted specifically at the currency market," said Hirano.
The Nikkei is likely to move narrowly between 8,900 and 9,100, market players said. Nikkei futures traded in Chicago closed at 8,985, down slightly from its 9,130 Osaka close.
Despite the Nikkei's rise over the past two trading days, which lifted it 2.7 percent, market players said sentiment remained fragile and levels around 8,800 could be tested soon.
Below 8,800, the next target is 8,697, a 61.8 percent retracement of the rally between the Nikkei's March 2009 low and April 2010 high.
A trader at a Japanese securities firm said that while the market has fallen to a good level for pension funds to buy, retail investors were likely to stay on the sidelines after being battered by recent market volatility. ----------------------MARKET SNAPSHOT @ 2300 GMT ------------
INSTRUMENT LAST PCT CHG NET CHG S&P 500 1048.92 -1.47% -15.670 USD/JPY 84.56 -0.07% -0.060 10-YR US TSY YLD 2.5303 -- 0.000 SPOT GOLD 1236.7 0.00% 0.040 US CRUDE 74.1 -0.80% -0.600 DOW JONES 10009.73 -1.39% -140.92 ------------------------------------------------------------- > Wall St falls on economy woes, volume lowest > Yen gains broadly as BOJ easing move disappoints > 30-year bond gains 2 full points in price > Gold rises as equities slip; economic data eyed > Oil slips with equities on economic concerns
STOCKS TO WATCH
-- Advantest Corp, chip-linked shares
Chipmakers weighed on the Nasdaq after Intel Corp lost ground in the wake of its $1.4 billion bid to buy the wireless unit of German chipmaker Infineon Technologies Ag, helping Intel make its way into the booming smartphone market and possibly cutting its reliance on personal computers.
The Philadelphia Semiconductor Index lost 2.5 percent.
-- Sumitomo Metal Mining Co
Sumitomo Metal Mining plans to raise resource exploration investment in the current business year beyond a previously expected 4 billion yen ($47.32 million) and plans to lift its copper interests to 300,000 tonnes from the current 180,000 tonnes, the Nikkei business daily said. ($1=84.53 Yen) (Reporting by Elaine Lies; Editing by Michael Watson)