TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average stepped back from near a record high on Monday, weighed down by chip-related shares following losses for US peers on Friday.
Nintendo also tumbled following media reports that the successor to its switch game console won’t be released until early 2025, instead of later this year.
The benchmark Nikkei was 0.37% lower at 38,344.91 as of 0221 GMT, after pushing as high as 38,865.06 on Friday.
That was just 93 points from the all-time high reached on the final trading day of 1989, at the peak of Japan’s bubble economy.
The outsized drag from tech shares was borne out in the much better performance of the broader Topix index, which added 0.09%. Trading was also likely thinner due to the President’s Day holiday in the US, which likely kept overseas investors away.
The Nikkei has climbed a blistering 14.6% this year already, and technical indicators are flashing warnings of overheating.
Its relative strength index (RSI) sits around 74.1 currently and has been above the 70 threshold that signals an overbought market for a week.
The Nikkei volatility index reached the highest in a month on Friday.
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“Until there’s some new catalyst it seems like it would be difficult to chase prices back up to the record high,” said Maki Sawada, a strategist at Nomura Securities.
She also pointed to the drag from higher US bond yields , particularly on tech stocks, as offsetting support from a weak yen.
Chip-sector heavyweights Advantest and Tokyo Electron were the Nikkei’s biggest drags, shaving off 77.5 and 39 index points respectively with declines of 4% and 1.2%.
Nintendo was the biggest percentage decliner though, slumping 6.7%.
Bucking the trend was artificial intelligence-focused startup investor SoftBank Group, adding a Nikkei-leading 20 index points with a 1.3% rise following a media report that founder Masayoshi Son is looking to raise up to $100 billion for a chip venture.
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