Tokyo stocks open lower on US rout

Tokyo, Oct 1 (AFP/APP):Tokyo stocks opened lower on Friday, extending falls on Wall Street, as investors weighed recent events including a ruling-party vote to pick Japan’s next premier.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 was down 0.64 percent or 187.76 points at 29,264.90 in early trade, while the broader Topix index slipped 0.90 percent or 18.17 points to 2,011.99.

“Japanese shares are falling, with investors disheartened by the plunge in US stocks,” Okasan Online Securities said.
Before the Tokyo market’s opening bell, the US Congress approved a stopgap funding bill in a rare show of cross-party unity to avert a crippling government shutdown.

However, “there remains a risk of further confrontations as it is only a stopgap,” Hideyuki Suzuki, head of SBI Securities’ investment information department, told AFP.

As Friday marks the start of the second half of this financial year, Japanese companies “could see some buybacks after sell-offs in the past few sessions, at the end of the first half” of the year, he said.
Confidence among major Japanese manufacturers improved for the fifth consecutive quarter, a key Bank of Japan business survey showed Friday, which is likely to have “a positive effect on the market”, Suzuki said.
“But the weak outlook in the auto sector, probably due to the virus-hit bottleneck in parts supplies, is a risk to the Japanese economy,” he added.

The dollar fetched 111.40 yen in early Asian trade, against 111.24 yen in New York late Thursday.
In Tokyo, Nintendo — which joined the Nikkei 225 index on Friday — was down 5.25 percent at 51,460 yen after a Hong Kong-based investment bank cut its assessment of the shares.

Telecom giant KDDI was down 0.89 percent at 3,658 yen after a US investment bank revised its assessment downwards.

Japan’s unemployment rate in August stood at 2.8 percent, unchanged from the previous month, according to data released by the internal affairs ministry before the opening bell, which did not prompt a strong market reaction.