Japan's Nikkei erases most gains as SoftBank Group tanks
By Junko Fujita and Rocky Swift
TOKYO, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei stock gauge erased most of its early gains to end nearly flat on Tuesday as SoftBank Group tanked almost 10% on concerns about competition between OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini.
The Nikkei 225 Index .N225 was up 0.07% at 48,659.52, after rising as much as 1.14%. The broader Topix .TOPX was down 0.21% at 3,290.89.
"Investors were concerned about the competitiveness of ChatGPT from OpenAI, in which SoftBank Group invests, with Google's new Gemini," said Kazuaki Shimada, chief strategist at IwaiCosmo Securities.
Alphabet's GOOGL.O launched the latest version of its artificial intelligence model Gemini last week, sending its shares to a record high.
"Typically, Japan's AI-related heavyweights move in the same direction, but today SoftBank Group fell on its own reason," said Shimada.
SoftBank Group 9984.T ended 9.95% lower, shaving 338 points off the Nikkei, which rose by 33.64 points.
Chip-related Advantest 6857.T and Tokyo Electron 8035.T rose 4.18% and 3.05%, respectively, mirroring strong performances among technology shares on Wall Street.
Major share indexes on Wall Street closed higher on Monday for a second session, as bets solidified that the U.S. Federal Reserve will deliver another interest rate cut in December. The tech-heavy Nasdaq spearheaded the rally, driven by strong performances from artificial intelligence-related stocks.
The Japanese market was closed on Monday for a public holiday.
On Tuesday, there were 122 advancers in the Nikkei against 99 decliners.
The sharpest advancers were Eisai 4523.T, which rose 7.4%. The drugmaker, a co-developer of Alzheimer's treatment Lequembi, rose after Novo Nordisk NOVOb.CO said clinical trials of its semaglutide drug failed to help slow the progression of the brain-wasting illness.
Tokyo Electric Power 9501.T fell 6.41% after a regional governor approved a partial restart of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power plant, which would be the first restart of a facility for TEPCO since the March 2011 tsunami destroyed its Fukushima Daiichi power plant.
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