Tokyo, Nov. 6 (Jiji Press)–Stocks ended moderately lower on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Thursday morning, with investor sentiment hurt by the continued sluggish performance of major banking groups.
“The U.S. Dow Jones industrial average’s softness overnight pushed down Japanese stocks at a time when the Tokyo market is in a standstill amid a growing wait-and-see mood ahead of Sunday’s general election,” said Nagayuki Yamagishi, senior equity manager at UFJ Tsubasa Securities Co.
At the morning close, the 225-issue Nikkei average stood down 79.38 points from Wednesday at 10,758.16. On Wednesday, the average sagged 10.43 points.
The TOPIX index of all first-section issues was down 8.32 points at 1,054.99. It ended down 6.70 points in the previous session.(MORE)Tokyo Stocks Moderately Lower in Morning
Decliners beat advancers 872 to 472 on the first section in the morning, while 177 issues were flat.
Half-day volume came to 619 million shares.
Domestic demand-linked issues, including general contractors, met with selling from foreign investors like hedge funds, brokers said.
Meanwhile, Japanese institutional investors took to the sidelines as they have found difficulty stepping up purchases ahead of the general election and Friday’s release of U.S. employment data for October.
Kenichi Hirano, equity general manager at Tachibana Securities Co., said that investors are increasingly focusing on shares of technology firms backed by upbeat earnings performances although they were top-heavy in the morning.
The Big Four banking groups of Mizuho, Mitsubishi Tokyo, UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui lost ground, together with brokerage houses like Nomura, Daiwa and Nikko.
Also lower were general contractors Taisei, Obayashi and Shimizu.
Telecom carriers NTT, KDDI and NTT DoCoMo faltered.
Technology issues like Matsushita Electric Industrial, Toshiba, NEC and Fujitsu declined.
On the other hand, automakers fared well. Toyota rose 5.1 pct after the industry leader Wednesday reported record-high earnings for the April-September fiscal first half. Nissan, Honda and Mitsubishi also prospered.
Metalworking machinery maker Amada rewrote its year-to-date high following an upward revision of its April-September earnings estimates unveiled Wednesday.END
