TOKYO: Tokyo stocks fell on the last day of the 2014 fiscal year, as investors booked profits in drug makers and other recent strong performers, but still finished up for the just-ended quarter.
The 10 per cent gain in the index in January-March is the exchange’s best quarterly performance since the three months to the end of December 2013.
The Nikkei Stock Average ended down 1.1 per cent at 19206.99 Tuesday, defying a buoyant overnight Wall Street, a stronger dollar, and lingering bullishness in other Asian markets from the previous day’s session when China’s government signaled that the country would ease monetary policy to boost sluggish growth.
Investors are now eyeing the Bank of Japan’s tankan survey of business sentiment, due on Wednesday morning, for more clues over the investing environment.
“The market has essentially been ‘risk on’ since mid-January, says CLSA equity strategist Nicholas Smith. “In fact, if anything, momentum indicators have been frequently flashing overheated, triggering questions of whether the BOJ might be actually obstructing the market with its ETF [exchange traded fund] buying.”
