TOKYO: The Japanese stock market is lower on Friday, tracking the negative lead from Wall Street and a flat yen. Sentiment was subdued ahead of the U.S. jobs report later in the day.
In late-morning trades, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 90.19 points or 0.44 percent to 20,398.00, off a low of 20,363.18 earlier.
Among the major exporters, Sony Corp. (SNE) and Hitachi are declining more than 1 percent each, while Nikon is losing almost 3 percent. Canon is down 0.3 percent, while Hitachi and Panasonic are also lower by more than 1 percent each.
In the tech space, Fanuc is down 0.2 percent and Kyocera is lower by 0.4 percent, while Casio Computer is advancing almost 2 percent.
Among auto stocks, Toyota (TM) is declining more than 2 percent and Honda (HMC) is losing almost 1 percent.
In the banking space, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial (MTU) is lower by more than 2 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mizuho Financial are losing almost 2 percent.
