Friday, 27 March 2015 12:49
TOKYO: Tokyo stocks dropped 0.95 percent on Friday, hit by profit-taking after another sell-off on Wall Street, with markets also rattled by worries over the escalating crisis in Yemen.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell 185.49 points to 19,285.63, while the Topix index of all first-section shares dropped 1.02 percent, or 16.04 points, to 1,552.78.
“With little market-moving news, there was a fair amount of selling,” said Norihiro Fujito, head of investment information department at Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley.
“Underwhelming moves in US stocks are prompting profit-taking in (Japanese) shares that have surged recently,” he added.
New York stocks took a hit after it emerged that Saudi Arabian jets targeted rebel positions as part of its support of Yemen’s president, who fled his presidential complex Wednesday after it was attacked by a warplane.
Iran condemned the action by a Saudi coalition of regional Sunni nations, which has exacerbated longstanding Saudi-Iranian tensions.
The Dow fell 0.23 percent, the S&P 500 dropped 0.24 percent, while the Nasdaq was off 0.27 percent.
Fears about a wider Middle East conflict pushed up the yen, which is a negative for Japanese stocks.
In forex markets, the dollar was at 119.15 yen from 119.18 yen in New York.
Official Japanese data Friday showed that a key inflation measure was flat for the first time in nearly two years in February, weighed by a plunge in oil prices and tepid household spending.
The dismal figures come after Bank of Japan chief Haruhiko Kuroda acknowledged this month that dragging the country out of years of deflation was proving to be “very challenging”, and he warned that inflation may temporarily fall to zero
“The fact that core (inflation) was zero isn’t great from a fundamental perspective,” said Daisuke Uno, chief strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking.
“But since the Bank of Japan was already taking that view, these figures are in line and are not a huge surprise” for investors.
Toyota slipped 1.44 percent to 8,481.0 yen. On Thursday, the automaker said it would overhaul its production methods to slash development costs owing to what its president called “sudden and drastic changes” in the auto sector.
Market heavyweight Fast Retailing, operator of the Uniqlo clothing chain, fell 0.22 percent to 46,225.0 yen but Canon gained 1.27 percent to 4,253.0 yen.
Panasonic jumped 3.20 percent to 1,576.5 yen after saying it expects profit in the next fiscal year to rise by nearly a quarter as it moves away from the struggling television and smartphone sectors.
Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2015
