TOKYO: Tokyo stocks inched down on Tuesday to extend a losing streak as investors searched for fresh trading pegs after the corporate earnings season.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index edged down 0.98 points to close at 22,380.01, falling for the fifth straight session, while the broader Topix index declined 0.26 percent, or 4.62 points, to 1,778.87.
Tokyo shares opened lower on profit-taking as investors cashed in on the recent gains.
They soon regained some ground in see-saw exchanges but sank into negative territory in the last minutes of trading.
“We are seeing a tug-of-war between profit-taking and bargain-hunting,” said Toshikazu Horiuchi, a broker at IwaiCosmo Securities.
“It will take some time to return to an upward trend,” Horiuchi told AFP.
The key index hit a quarter-century high last week on easing concerns over geopolitical risks and expectations for sound corporate earnings.
“The Nikkei average will possibly correct its (rising) pace in the immediate future. Given that corporate earnings have been strong, however, the drops will not be deep,” Masayuki Kubota, chief strategist at Rakuten Securities, said in a commentary.
Makoto Sengoku, market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Centre, said Tokyo stocks were now prone to speculative trade, which have resulted in sharp price swings.
“Company earnings were largely robust and Tokyo shares rose fast… This has become an incentive for speculation” to reap quick profits, he told AFP.
Investors are waiting for an expected US interest rate hike in December, which would push the yen lower to benefit Japanese exporters, as well as progress in US tax reform, he said.
The dollar was at 113.61 yen Tuesday afternoon, little changed from 113.63 yen in New York.
Shares in tech giant SoftBank fell 1.50 percent to 9,530 yen after it said there was “no final agreement” on an investment in Uber and warned it could pull out of a potential deal if the terms were unsatisfactory.
Toshiba jumped 4.65 percent to 292 yen after the Yomiuri daily reported it and manufacturing partner Western Digital had entered in-depth talks on settling a legal dispute over the sale of the embattled Japanese conglomerate’s memory chip unit.
The company said it was “always open to discussing potential settlement options” but declined to give further details.
Honda lost 0.32 percent to 3,710 yen while Toyota was unchanged at 7,132 yen, but Sony rose 0.51 percent to 5,224 yen.
Source: Brecorder.com
