1.   In the first half hour of trading Friday, the Nikkei index moved up on the back of arbitrage-linked buying of cash equities, participants said.

2.   The company also said it will close its U.S. cash equities operations and is in talks over the sale of its Asian cash equities and Australian investment banking operations.

3.   Traders said the Nikkei declined in the morning because of index-linked arbitrage selling of cash equities.

4.   Traders said the Nikkei index lost ground in the morning under the weight of index-linked arbitrage selling of cash equities.