TOKYO: Tokyo’s benchmark shares index was flat Monday morning after falls on Wall Street and as disappointing Chinese data aggravated concerns about the world’s number two economy.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange edged down 12.53 points to 20,712.03 by the break. The Topix index of all first-section shares dipped 0.10 percent, or 1.72 points, to 1,677.47.
Wall Street stocks dropped Friday after a solid US July jobs report lifted expectations the Federal Reserve will soon raise interest rates.
The Dow lost 0.27 percent, the S&P 500 slipped 0.29 percent, while the Nasdaq fell 0.26 percent.
The Labor Department said the US economy added 215,000 jobs last month and that unemployment held steady at a seven-year-low rate of 5.3 percent.
The report brought the average monthly jobs gains to 235,000 over the past three months, heightening expectations that the Fed could raise its near-zero federal funds rate as early as next month.
On Saturday, China said its foreign trade performance worsened in July, with both exports and imports slumping more than eight percent from a year earlier.
“Chinese imports were weak as expected, but exports were worse than estimates, which is a surprise,” Shoji Hirakawa, chief equity strategist at Okasan Securities, told Bloomberg News.
