TOKYO: Japan’s Nikkei share average traded lower on Thursday, as investors sold stocks to lock in profits from the index’s record highs.
The Nikkei was down 0.65% at 38,953.49 by the midday break, trading below the 39,000 level for the first time since Feb. 22. The broader Topix fell 0.62% to 2,658.26.
“Investors sold stocks to lock in profits after the Nikkei paused a rally,” Naoki Fujiwara, senior fund manager at Shinkin Asset Management, said. “But I see demand for buying stocks on dips.
And investors seem to have shifted their targets to smaller stocks.“
The Nikkei eased back on Wednesday from an all-time peak scaled in the previous session, with technical signals suggesting that the more-than-9% gain made over the previous three weeks had been too rapid.
On Thursday, technology investor SoftBank Group fell 1.39% to drag the Nikkei the most. Ceramics maker Kyocera lost 1.5%.
Sentiment was hurt by the latest data from the finance ministry, which showed foreign investors turned net sellers of Japanese stocks in the week when the index scaled an all-time high, Ryutaro Sawada, senior market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute, said.
Japan’s Nikkei hovers below record high as rally pauses for breath
Foreign investors sold 200 billion yen ($1.33 billion) of Japanese stocks in the week ended Feb. 24, pausing a seven-week buying streak.
Bucking the trend on Thursday, Aozora Bank surged 9.44% after public disclosure showed an activist fund City Index Eleventh owns 5.42% in the Tokyo-based bank.
Seven & i Holdings rose 4.83% after media reported that the convenience store chain operator was considering selling a supermarket unit to investment funds.
A company spokesman said there was no truth to it.
Shipping firms, which lost 2.7% so far this week, rose 1.29% to become the top performer among the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s 33 industry sub-indexes.
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