Tokyo stocks close lower

A man looks at his watch as he passes an electronic board displaying a graph of currency rates outside a brokerage in Tokyo.

A man looks at his watch as he passes an electronic board displaying a graph of currency rates outside a brokerage in Tokyo.

Published Jul 8, 2014

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Tokyo - Tokyo stocks ended down 0.42 percent on Tuesday after a Wall Street sell-off, while exporters were hit by a stronger yen.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index lost 65.03 points to finish at 15,314.41, while the Topix index of all first-section shares slipped 0.33 percent, or 4.17 points, to 1,275.70.

“The market had been resilient to external pressures such as the dollar and overseas equities prices due to the demand from domestic pension funds and overseas...funds - but this has tapered off,” said Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities.

“Bargain-buyers are still likely to provide a measure of downside support, but the Nikkei's upside is going to be limited unless another class of investors comes in to push the market higher,” he added.

The Tokyo market has been boosted by expectations Japan's national pension fund - the world's biggest - would shift more of its bond-heavy portfolio into stocks at home and abroad in search of higher returns.

The fund posted a quarterly loss between January and March, its first in almost two years, raising expectations of the move into stocks which could trigger another surge in the Nikkei.

Rakuten Securities senior market analyst Masayuki Doshida told Dow Jones Newswires: “Attention is now turning to US corporate earnings, and the (US Federal Reserve's) stance on monetary policy, especially the pace of stimulus tapering after last week's strong jobs data.”

The US central bank is to release on Wednesday minutes of its most recent policy meeting, at which it kept policy on hold as it showed faith in a modest rebound.

US stocks fell Monday, retreating from last week's records as analysts pointed to profit-taking and predictions from some experts that the market was due for a pullback.

The Dow fell 0.26 percent to 17,024.21.

In foreign exchange deals the dollar bought 101.79 yen, slightly weaker than 101.87 yen in New York and well down from the 102.11

yen in Tokyo earlier Monday.

In share trading, Uniqlo clothing chain operator Fast retailing slipped 1.07 percent to end at 33,220 yen, while Sony was down 0.69 percent to 1,718 yen. - Sapa-AFP

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