Tokyo shares finished lower Monday as the yen jumped in response to North Korea's firing of four ballistic missiles, three of which landed in Japanese-controlled waters. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the missiles were launched "almost simultaneously" and warned the threat from Pyongyang had "entered a new stage".
The yen is seen internationally as a safe-haven currency and investors tend to buy it in times of turmoil or uncertainty, but a pickup in the currency hits Japanese exporters' profitability. In Asian forex markets, the dollar slipped to 113.87 yen from 114.05 yen in New York on Friday.
"Investors seem to be reacting to the North Korean missile launch," said Hiroaki Hiwada, a strategist at Toyo Securities.
"The yen's strengthening and investors are staying away from trades as geopolitical risk increases. I do think this is a temporary situation as we've seen in the past, but with this many missiles being launched there's heightened tension," he told Bloomberg News.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 ended the day 0.46 percent, or 90.03 points, lower at 19,379.14. The broader Topix index of all first-section issues lost 0.20 percent, or 3.15 points, to close at 1,554.90.
Toyota slipped 0.17 percent to 6,444 yen while Sony lost 1.16 percent to close at 3,560 yen.
Market heavyweight Fast Retailing, Uniqlo's operator, closed down 2.76 percent at 36,240 yen.
Yamato Holdings dropped 4.01 percent to 2,441 yen on reports that the major delivery firm would retroactively compensate its parcel carriers for unpaid overtime totalling tens of billions of yen.
A Yamato spokesman told AFP that the firm was looking into the situation and was "prepared" to give back pay. The payments would cover some 70,000 employees, mainly full-time drivers.
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