In late afternoon, the dollar bought 119.14 yen, up 1.42 yen from late Thursday in Tokyo and also above its rate of 117.87 yen in late New York trading overnight.

The Nikkei index opened higher but later reversed course as investors began selling to take advantage of a 1,300.19-point gain in the index over the past five trading days. ``The market ran out of steam,'' said Yasuo Ueki, a general manager at Nikko Securities.

Profit-taking in shares of NTT Mobile Communications Network Inc., better known as NTT Docomo, which made a strong market debut on Thursday,served as a signal for selling of the broad market, dealers said.

Docomo, which closed up 19 per cent from its initial public offering price on Thursday, fell 200,000 yen ($1,694) to 4.45 million yen ($37,711) Friday.Dealers said the government's decision Friday to temporarily nationalise the troubled long-term credit bank of Japan had long been expected and had no significant impact on the market. On Friday, the Tokyo Stock Exchange suspended trading in shares of the LTCB for the whole day.

Shares of LTCB, once a pillar of Japan's postwar financial system that recently has struggled under a massive load of bad loans, had fallen to a record low of 2 yen ($0.17) earlier this week.

Prime minister Keizo Obuchi later approved the takeover and announced the first nationalisation of a Japanese bank since World War-II. Earlier this month, Japan's parliament passed the legislation allowing government takeovers of foundering banks to fix them or shut them down. It authorized the government to pump up to 60trillion yen ($515 billion) in taxpayer funds into the ailing banking system.

Trading was fairly active, with about 460 million shares changing hands on the first section, down from Thursday's 863 million. Retreating issues outnumbered advancers 702 to 481, with 130 unchanged.

The broader Tokyo stock price index of all issues listed on the first section closed down 6.14 points, or 0.57 per cent, to 1,068.15. The topix had risen 2.46 points, or 0.23 per cent, the previous day.

In currency trading, renewed concern about Japan's economy promoted yen-selling, pushing the dollar higher above 119.00 yen for the first time since Oct, 15, traders said.

Also supporting the dollar was Friday's announcement by credit ratings agency Moody's investors service that it has placed the credit ratings of four major Japanese banks on review for possible downgrade, dealers said.

Moody's cited heightened concerns over the banks' exposure to economic problems in Japan and other Asian nations, higher borrowing costsoverseas and declines in the value of their stockholdings for the move.