Roundup: Tokyo stocks drop as weak economic data drags down U.S. shares, pushes up yen
Xinhua, April 17, 2015 Adjust font size:
The Nikkei stock index fell 1.17 percent to a more than one-week low Friday as investors switched to a risk-on mood following more disappointing data from the U.S. and to realign positions ahead of corporate earnings season here.
The Nikkei 225 stock average lost 232.89 points to close the week at 19,652.88, while the broader Topix index of all first- section issues dropped 0.67 percent, or 10.73 points, to end at 1, 588.69.
Local brokers said that the market followed weak leads from European and U.S. markets, with the latter dragged down by government data showing that U.S. housing starts rose far less than expected in March and permits logged their biggest drop since last May.
Coupled with the Labor Department saying that the number of Americans filing new claims for jobless benefits shot up unexpectedly last week by 12,000, to a seasonally adjusted 294,000 for the week ended April 11, ahead of median analysts'estimates, some economists wondered how the world's largest economy would shape up after this soft patch and whether the U.S. Federal Reserve would further delay plans to hike its key interest rate.
With the yen rising to 118.93 compared to 119.04 yen versus the U.S. dollar in New York, market players also speculated whether this would impact earnings season, scheduled to kick off here next week and said, in twine with the situation in the U.S., investors opted to hit the pause button in the meantime to see how things shape up. "Earnings expectations have already been priced in for the most part. In that sense we're in a state of wait-and-see,"said Juichi Wako, a senior strategist at Nomura Holdings.
Exporters lost ground on the yen's firmness and individual issues, with Sharp slumping 5.7 percent to 261 yen, after local reports that the firm had secured a 200 billion yen capital injection from its banks to help its falling margins.
Sony lost ground Friday, slipping 3.7 percent to 3,555 yen, following WikiLeaks publishing thousands of documents connected to a series of hacking incidents at the firm's film studio in the U. S.
Panasonic also came under pressure, dropping 0.8 percent to end the week at 1,557 yen.
But financial issues held firm, with top bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group advancing 2.1 percent to 822 yen and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group gaining 0.9 percent to close at 4,951 yen.
Trading volume on Friday rose to 2.68 billion shares on the Tokyo Exchange's First Section, up from Thursday's volume of 2.54 billion shares, with declining issues beating advancing ones by 1, 301 to 461. Endi