TOKYO: Tokyo stocks lost 0.81 percent Monday morning, following a sharp fall on Wall Street last week and poor September trade figures that underscored weakness in Japan's economy.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange, which soared 5.5 percent last week, lost 73.14 points to 8,929.54 by the break while the Topix index of all first-section issues sank 0.79 percent, or 5.93 points, to 748.46.
Shortly before the Tokyo market opened, official data showed Japan logged a $7.0 billion trade deficit in September, hit by the global slowdown and the fallout from a bitter territorial spat with China.
It was the worst September trade figure in more than 30 years, with exports falling 10.3 percent on-year. Exports to China, which is Japan's biggest trading partner, tumbled 14.1 percent.
"The weak Japan September trade numbers were horrible, while Mitsubishi Corp.'s forecast cut is also weighing heavily on the market," CLSA equity strategist Nicholas Smith told Dow Jones Newswires.
Mitsubishi lost 2.65 percent to 1,392 yen by the break as the trading house slashed its profit forecast for the fiscal year to March 2013 after markets closed Friday.
The company said it now expects a 330 billion yen net profit, down from an earlier 500 billion yen forecast. It blamed the change on a fall in global commodity prices and a prolonged strike at its Australian coking coal subsidiary.
Exporters were generally lower with Canon off 1.47 percent at 2,610 yen and Nissan Motor down 1.55 percent at 698 yen.
On currency markets the dollar bought 79.29 yen, almost unchanged from New York late Friday, while the euro fetched $1.3046 and 103.44 yen against $1.3027 and 103.58 yen in US trade.
"A break in the current yen weakening trend is likely to hurt the market, but stocks are also simply due for profit-taking after last week's strong rally," said Hiroichi Nishi, general manager of equities at SMBC Nikko Securities.
US markets sank Friday with the Nasdaq pulled down by a tech stock rout led by Apple and Microsoft as a series of disappointing earnings and trimmed forecasts spooked investors.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average finished down 1.52 percent at 13,343.51 while the tech-heavy Nasdaq gave up 2.19 percent to end at 3,005.62.
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