TOKYO: Tokyo stocks fell 0.61 percent on Monday morning with buying discouraged by a strong yen and caution ahead of a European Union summit later in the day.
The Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange lost 54.14 points to 8,787.08 by the break. The Topix index of all first-section issues dropped 0.47 percent or 3.54 points to 757.59.
Major exporters waned on a stronger yen while participants refrained from aggressive bets ahead of the European summit in Brussels, said Hideyuki Ishiguro, supervisor of investment strategy at Okasan Securities.
Still, the Nikkei index was unlikely to fall too far below 8,800 as selling momentum was not strong, he told Dow Jones Newswires.
The euro bought $1.3180 and 101.12 yen in Tokyo morning trade, down from $1.3221 and 101.37 in New York late Friday.
The dollar was at 76.72 yen against 76.67 yen in New York.
Toyota Motor fell 0.95 percent to 2,811 yen while Sony tumbled 1.62 percent to 1,391 yen. Canon, which was to announce its full-year results after the market close, was down 1.44 percent at 3,420 yen.
On Friday lower-than-expected US growth figures and a disappointing quarterly report from Chevron kept a lid on US markets.
Official data showed that the US economy grew at an annual 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, but below average forecasts of 3.2 percent.
The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average closed 0.58 percent lower at 12,660.46, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq rose 0.40 percent to 2,816.55 on a report that Facebook could finally make a move to go public.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.