TOKYO (AFP) -- Japanese share prices ended narrowly mixed Tuesday as investors remained cautious after recent heavy losses despite an overnight rally on Wall Street, dealers said.

They said buyers were scarce ahead of another raft of company results.
The Tokyo Stock Exchange's benchmark Nikkei-225 index of leading shares dropped 40.41 points or 0.23 percent to 17,248.89.
The broader Topix index of all first-section shares rose 0.47 points to 1,706.18.
Gainers outnumbered decliners 1,045 to 592, with 89 stocks unchanged.
Turnover dropped to 2.1 billion shares from 2.3 billion Monday.
Optimism about the outlook for Japanese corporate earnings was tempered by worries about the health of the U.S. economy in light of recent problems in the sub-prime mortgage market for risky borrowers, dealers said.
""Shares in individual companies that announced upbeat earnings were in demand but the U.S. sub-prime problem weighed on market sentiment,"" said Hiroaki Hiwada, a market strategist at Toyo Securities.
He said that although the Japanese economy had not been directly affected by the U.S. sub-prime woes, the market continued to follow developments closely