Tokyo shares down 0.77pc in morning trade

TOKYO: Tokyo shares lost 0.77 percent Monday morning following a slump on Wall Street and on the yen's strength against the euro, brokers said.

The benchmark Nikkei index declined 73.10 points at 9,441.34 by noon. The Topix index of all issues on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell 0.82 percent or 6.72 points to 810.66.

Investors' sentiment was dampened by Friday's decline in US stocks and a relatively strong yen against the European unit, said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities.

US stock markets closed firmly in the red Friday, with the Dow posting six straight weeks of losses for the first time since 2002.

In early Asian trade on Monday, the euro traded at 115.62 yen against 116.19 yen late last week.

A surprise 3.3 percent decline in Japan's core machinery orders had little impact on sentiment, brokers said.

"There's still not much expectation for manufacturers to invest in machinery at this point," said Kazuhiro Takahashi, general manager of investment strategy and research at Daiwa Securities.

Toyota Motor fell 2.57 percent to 3,215 after the automaker projected its net profit for the fiscal year ending March 31 would drop 31 percent to 280 billion yen (3.5 billion dollars), well short of analysts' forecast.

Honda Motor dropped 2.11 percent to 2,922 following news reports that the automaker expects a decline in global production for the current fiscal year due to disruptions caused by the March 11 earthquake.

Renesas Electronics climbed 3.32 percent to 746 after the company said Friday it expects to return to pre-quake supply capacity in late September, a month earlier than previously forecast.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011