Japan Nikkei falls on Wall Street's slide, yen's rise

Headline indices of the Japan share market closed down on Thursday, 07 February 2019, as profit-taking and position-squaring selling triggered on tracking fall in Wall Street overnight and yen's appreciation against the U.S. dollar. Total 32 sub-indexes out of 33 sub-indexes of TOPIX closed down, with shares in Oil & Coal Products, Pulp & Paper, Mining, Real Estate, Construction, and Foods issues being notable losers. At closing bell, the 225-issue Nikkei index declined 122.78 points, or 0.59%, at 20,751.28. The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange dropped 13.10 points, or 0.83%, to 1,569.03.

US shares ended down after a batch of mixed earnings, with President Donald Trump's State of the Union address on Tuesday night having little effect on stocks.

 

Investors were also taking a wait-and-see attitude on concerns over China-US trade talks and the two day US-North Korea summit planned for later this month.

Shares of exporters were lower, with automakers leading losses, partly because of "concerns over the US-China trade war" and the risk of a wider global economic slowdown. Toyota fell 1.9%, Honda was off 1.1%, and Nissan finished down 0.2%. Sony slumped 2.6% following its lowering of sales and profit estimates for the current business year to March. Chemical producer Asahi Kasei lost 4.8% due to its profit warning for the same year.

Technology conglomerate SoftBank Group shot up 17.7% on buying triggered by its announcement of an own-share buyback plan of up to 600 billion yen. Chipmaking gear manufacturers Tokyo Electron, Screen and Disco rose by 1.7%, 3.7% and 2.2%, respectively, thanks to a leading U.S. semiconductor producer's surge on Wall Street.

CURRENCY NEWS: Japanese yen was little changed against greenback on Thursday. The dollar fetched 109.98 yen, against 109.97 yen in New York.

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