TOKYO: Tokyo stocks fell 0.73 percent Monday morning, hit by a stronger yen and following another heavy sell-off on Wall Street.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange slipped 150.12 points to 20,394.41 by the break, while the Topix index of all first-section shares eased 0.81 percent, or 13.49 points, to 1,642.37.
“US earnings aren t good, with the strong dollar and commodity market weakness weighing on results,” Shoji Hirakawa, chief equity strategist at Okasan Securities, told Bloomberg News.
“And as this trend shows no signs of reversing, people are worrying about the direction of the July to September quarter.”
The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2.9 percent last week following a raft of earnings disappointments as Wall Street succumbed to lack of confidence.
On Friday, the Dow shed 0.92 percent, while the broad-based S&P 500 dropped 1.07 percent.
In Tokyo forex trade Monday, the dollar was at 123.54 yen, down from 123.81 yen in New York and well off the levels above 124 yen seen earlier Friday in Asia.
A strong yen is negative for Japanese exporters as it makes them less competitive abroad and shrinks the value of their repatriated profits.
In share trading, Sony fell 1.09 percent to 3,654 yen by the break, while Toyota slipped 0.77 percent to 8,213 yen.
Market heavyweight Fast Retailing, which operates the Uniqlo clothing chain, eased 0.18 percent to 58,140 yen, and mobile carrier SoftBank sank 1.30 percent to 6,861 yen.
