Tokyo - Japan's largest brokerage house, Nomura Holings Inc, incurred a record net loss for fiscal 2008 that ended March 31, the firm said Friday.

The record loss amounted to 709.44 billion yen (7.24 billion dollars) after the firm was hit hard by the global financial turmoil and the burden of taking over part of the US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc in September last year.

Nomura also posted a net loss of 67.85 billion yen in fiscal 2007.

Tokyo- Tokyo stocks closed lower Friday as investors sold shares to lock in profits while waiting for earnings reports to be released by Japanese firms.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average dropped 139.02 points, or 1.57 per cent, to close at 8,707.99.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues was also down 9.45 points, or 1.13 per cent, at 830.05.

For the week, Nikkei fell 2.24 per cent, and Topix also dipped 1.84 per cent.

Beijing - Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso will hold talks with Chinese leaders in Beijing next week, China said Friday, despite a spat over Aso's recent offering to a controversial war shrine.

Aso will visit Beijing from Wednesday to Thursday at the invitation of his Chinese counterpart, Premier Wen Jiabao, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a brief statement.

Tokyo - Tokyo stocks ended Friday morning trading mixed ahead of corporate earnings reports. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average was down 29.05 points, or 0.33 per cent, to 8,817.96.

But the broader Topix index of all first-section issues inched up 1.73 points, or 0.21 per cent, to 841.23.

Stocks moved narrowly in Tokyo as investors adopted a wait-and-see attitude ahead of Japanese firms releasing their earnings reports.

Tokyo - Japan's second-largest phone company, KDDI Corp, on Thursday reported a net profit increase but a revenue drop for the fiscal year that ended March 31. KDDI's net profit increased by 2.3 per cent to 222.74 billion yen (2.27 billion dollars) from a year before, and its operating profit also rose 10.7 per cent to 443.2 billion yen.

But revenue shrank by 2.7 per cent to 3.5 trillion yen, mainly because of a new mobile phone installment plan that slowed handset sales, the company said.

Tokyo - Japan's three biggest banking groups were expected to report net losses for the fiscal year that ended March 31 amid worsening global financial turmoil, one of the banks and media reports said Thursday. Such losses would mark the first time in six years that all of Japan's three megabanks would swing into the red.