Tokyo stocks close lower

TOKYO: Tokyo stocks closed lower on Friday after a day of see-saw trading as investors locked in profits.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.19 percent or 54.25 points to end at 28,964.08, while the broader Topix index fell 0.87 percent or 17.01 points to 1,946.56.

"The Nikkei index opened higher after US tech shares gained on the back of drops in long-term interests," said Okasan Online Securities.

"But the Nikkei later struggled to grow as buying of major shares and selling of business-sensitive stocks were competing with each other," it added.

The US Federal Reserve on Wednesday maintained its highly accommodative monetary policy as expected, but a majority of central bank officials now believe interest rates will increase in 2023, rather than 2024. Several policymakers projected interest rate hikes as soon as 2022.

A day later, Wall Street equity investors gravitated towards tech giants and shunned financial and energy shares, reversing a trend that has held for most of 2021.

In Tokyo, the Japanese central bank left its monetary easing policy unchanged, while announcing its first investment fund for efforts to address climate change.

Japan's core consumer prices, which exclude fresh food, edged up 0.1 percent in May on-year, the first monthly rise in the past 14 months, according to data published by the internal affairs ministry before the opening bell.

In Tokyo share trading, automakers were lower with Toyota plunging 3.88 percent to 9,833 yen, Honda losing 2.07 percent to 3,535 yen and Nissan dropping 2.98 percent to 545.3 yen.

Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing advanced 0.74 percent to 82,470 yen while SoftBank Group slid 0.79 percent to 7,834 yen.

Drugmaker Eisai, which announced it had agreed with Bristol Myers Squibb to jointly develop and market an experimental cancer drug, jumped 5.92 percent to 12,075 yen.

The dollar fetched 110.07 yen in Asian trade, against 110.18 yen in New York late Thursday.