Tokyo Stocks Open Lower After Long Weekend

Tokyo stocks open lower after long weekend

Tokyo, Sept 23 (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 23rd Sep, 2020 ) :Tokyo stocks opened lower Wednesday after a long weekend, as investors tried to catch up with global markets that lost heavily earlier this week.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.44 percent or 103.86 points to 23,256.44 in early trade, while the broader Topix index fell 0.43 percent or 7.03 points to 1,639.39.

"The Japanese market is starting with falls as the US market declined on the whole... since Friday," Toshiyuki Kanayama, senior market analyst at Monex, said in a commentary.

"The focus is on whether the Nikkei can maintain the psychologically important level of 23,000," he added.

The Dollar fetched 105.11 Yen in early Asian trade, against 104.

92 yen in New York late Tuesday and 104.83 yen during the last session in Tokyo late Friday.

In Tokyo, automakers were among losers, with Honda trading down 3.00 percent at 2,534.5 yen and Toyota down 0.16 percent at 7,027 yen.

Fujifilm Holdings was up 1.65 percent at 5,120 yen after a report during the long weekend said the company will seek approval for use of its anti-flu medication Avigan to treat coronavirus.

Among other major shares, Sony was down 1.29 percent at 8,216 yen and SoftBank Group was down 2.12 percent at 6,406 yen.

On Wall Street, the benchmark Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down 0.5 percent at 27,288.18, but the broader S&P 500 ended up 1.1 percent and the tech-rich Nasdaq rose 1.7 percent.