Tokyo stocks opened lower on Friday as investors turned cautious ahead of the release of US jobs data and a key Italian vote, with the benchmark index edging down from its high for the year.
With dealers certain the Federal Reserve will hike interest rates this month, key US jobs data for November due later in the day could provide some insight into its plans for future increases over the next year, reports BSS.
“In the short term, there’s a sense of overbuying in the market,” said Yoshinori Ogawa, a senior strategist at Okasan Securities Co.
“With the US jobs report and the Italian vote over the weekend, it’s a lot easier to see profit-taking,” he told Bloomberg News.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi speaks during a rally in downtown Rome, Italy
Italy on Sunday votes on constitutional reform. The result is being closely watched for its potential to topple the government and trigger a financial crisis that would place Italy’s heavily indebted banks in peril.
Tokyo’s key Nikkei 225 index lost 0.38 percent, or 69.78 points, to 18,443.34 in the first few minutes of trading, slipping off its high for the year on Thursday.
The Topix index of all first-section issues, meanwhile, was down 0.18 percent, or 2.62 points, to 1,480.65. The dollar declined to 113.78 yen Friday from 114.11 yen in New York on Thursday afternoon.
Tokyo stocks often react negatively to a stronger yen, which tends to dent the profitability of Japanese exporters. Sony tumbled 2.30 percent to 3,174 yen and Toyota slipped 0.31 percent to 6,686 yen.
But shares in Canon rose 0.76 percent to 3,309 yen after the Nikkei business daily reported the precision machinery maker will join Japan’s governmental space agency to develop low-cost mini-rockets as small as telephone poles.
