Japanese Stocks Fall; Exporters Decline After Dollar Weakens

April 19 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese shares fell as the dollar weakened for a third day against the yen, eroding the value of dollar-denominated sales at exporters including Canon Inc.
Oji Paper Co. and Nippon Paper Group Inc. dropped after the Nikkei newspaper reported the companies may miss their earnings estimates because of higher prices for materials.
The Nikkei 225 Stock Average slid 179.47, or 1 percent, to 17,487.86 as of 9:33 a.m. in Tokyo. The broader Topix index declined 15.05, or 0.9 percent, to 1715.66.
The yen recently traded at 118.28 against the dollar, compared with 119.74 yen on April 16. A weaker U.S. currency means Japanese exporters get less for their dollar-denominated sales while their products become less competitive.
Canon, the world's biggest digital camera maker, dropped 110 yen, or 1.7 percent, to 6,540. Sony Corp. the world's No. 1 maker of video-game players, declined 80 yen, or 1.2 percent, to 6,480.
Canon made about one third of its sales in North America in the last business year and the U.S. was the largest overseas market for Sony in the fiscal year ended March 2006.
Toyota, the world's second-largest automaker, lost 70 yen, or 1 percent, to 7,260. Toyota had more than one third of its sales in North America.
Oji Paper, Japan's largest paper producer, slid 17 yen, or 2.7 percent, to 620. Nippon Paper, the nation's second biggest,
Oji Paper's pretax profit appears to have declined 9 percent to about 64.5 billion yen ($545 million), about 3.5 billion yen less than a prior estimate, the Nikkei reported. Nippon Paper's profit may have dropped 7 percent to about 46 billion yen, or about 1 billion short of a previous projection, the newspaper said.
In Japan, at least 102 companies in the 1730-member Topix index are scheduled to report earnings in the following two weeks.