* Market lacks direction ahead of BOJ meeting * Spanish credit rating cut sustains Europe concerns * Nintendo sheds 6 pct on poor earnings By Sophia Knight TOKYO, April 27 (Reuters) - Japan's Nikkei crept up 0.1 percent on Friday morning following a flat opening after Spain's credit rating was cut and investors were unwilling to change position ahead of a Bank of Japan decision on whether to implement further easing measures. The Nikkei share average rose to 9,575.36 while the broader Topix was flat at 810.02 after both indexes dipped in and out of negative territory during early trading. "As always there's bad news from Spain and there's no incentives to prod investors to change their positions before the weekend," said Hiroyuki Mutsuro, head of execution support at Mizuho Securities. S&P downgraded Spain's credit rating by two notches to BBB+ from A with a negative outlook on Thursday, saying that the government's budget deficit could worsen as the economy looks set to contract more than previously anticipated. All eyes are now on the Bank of Japan, who are widely expected to expand their asset-purchasing scheme by up to 10 trillion yen, and some strategists say it may decide to buy longer-dated Japanese government bonds to stimulate the economy. Although investors have held back from taking major positions this week before the announcement, the expected move has already been priced into the market, says Masayuki Doshida, senior market analyst at Rakuten Securities. "The BOJ decision to ease in February was a surprise, but this time they're expected to, so unless they really dazzle today, the Nikkei won't go up. In fact it's far more likely to go down if they don't meet expectations," he said. Investors shrugged off modest improvements in Japan's industrial output and core consumer price index announced on Friday morning, with little impact on the benchmark. Factory output rose 1 percent in March on the previous month after a 1.6 percent decline in February, while the core consumer price index inched up 0.2 percent in March on a year earlier.

The latter fell well short of the 1 percent inflation target set by the BOJ in February. Investors may be reluctant to make major adjustments to their positions ahead of three Japanese national holidays next week, falling on Monday, Thursday and Friday, said Doshida, in spite of Japan being in the middle of its earnings season. Several large Japanese companies are to report profits for the last financial year on Friday, including auto makers Honda Motor and Mazda Motor Corp. Advantest Corp streaked ahead of the market, gaining 5.8 percent after outdoing market expectations with an operating profit forecast of 12 to 20 billion yen for the year ending March 2013. Nomura raised its rating for the maker of measuring instruments to "buy" from "neutral" and JPMorgan upgraded it to "overweight" from underweight". Nintendo skidded 5.8 percent after it posted its first annual operating loss of 37.3 billion yen ($461.69 million) after the close on Thursday, citing shrinking sales of its ageing Wii gaming console and weak demand for its new 3DS handheld device.