Friday, 20 March 2015 10:12
TOKYO: Tokyo stocks were flat on Friday morning, with Nintendo retreating after the videogame giant’s shares surged more than 30 percent in two days on a plan to enter the smartphone gaming market.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange edged up 10.19 points to 19,486.75 by the break, while the Topix index of all first-section shares slipped 0.17 percent, or 2.75 points, to 1,573.06.
The tepid performance comes after Tokyo fell Thursday following a surprisingly dovish forecast by the Federal Reserve for US economic growth and interest rates that sent the yen surging against the dollar — hitting Japanese exporters.
However, the greenback has since recovered from a tumble below the 120 yen level to buy 120.75 yen in Tokyo on Friday, slightly down from 120.80 yen in New York.
“The dollar fell quite a bit against the yen following the Fed’s statement, but investors are realising that there’ll be a rate hike either way this year,” Hitoshi Asaoka, a senior strategist at Mizuho Trust & Banking, told Bloomberg News.
“This will work towards supporting Japanese stocks.”
Investors are keeping a close eye on Greece, which has has agreed to give creditors a new list of reforms within days in order to secure bailout funds.
The announcement came after Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras held talks with key European counterparts on the sidelines of a summit in Brussels Thursday. Afterwards, Tsipras said Greece’s bailout was “back on track”.
In Tokyo Nintendo fell 5.94 percent to 17,965.0 yen by the break. The stock surged by about a third in the previous two days after the Super Mario and Pokemon creator said it would enter the booming market for games on smartphones, in a U-turn long sought by investors.
The company had long stuck with a policy to concentrate on home games consoles that critics saw as unrealistic in a market where cheap — and sometimes free — games for smartphones and tablets were soaring in popularity.
Toyota rose 0.68 percent to 8,549.0 yen, mobile carrier SoftBank added 1.0 percent to 7,102.0 yen and Japan’s biggest bank Mitsubishi UFJ turned down 0.64 percent to 780.0 yen.
On Wall Street, the Dow eased 0.65 percent and the S&P 500 shed 0.49 percent, but the Nasdaq added 0.19 percent.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2015
