Bank bargain-hunt

TOKYO - Stocks perked up at the end of Monday trade, as investors looked to the broader market for bargains while dumping several high-tech stocks after a profit warning from Apple Computer.

"Investors are beginning to realise there are a few sectors such as banking which are ripe for bargain-hunting. Also, the strong performance in NTT is quite encouraging," said Haruki Takahashi, equity dealing manager at Tsubasa Securities.

Electronics and semiconductor maker Fujitsu fell 3.19 per cent to 2430 yen while major chipmaker Toshiba Corp - the most heavily traded issue on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's (TSE) first section - fell 1.03 pe cent.

Another sore spot in the market was KDDI , Japan's second-largest telecoms carrier created on Sunday through a three-way merger between international carrier KDD, Toyota Motor Corp's cell phone unit IDO Corp and DDI, a carrier with international, domestic and cellphone services.