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Tokyo’s main stock market opens higher

TOKYO: Main stock market here opened higher today as the dollar’s rebound encouraged buying but the broader index was down while investors looked for fresh news to move the market.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index rose 0.22 percent or 47.73 points to 21,759.11 in early trade, while the broader Topix index fell 0.20 percent or 3.18 points at 1,603. “The market is expected to take a wait-and-see attitude with so few fresh domestic cues to move the market,” Okasan Online Securities said in a note.”The Nikkei should stay inside a narrow range, although we expect it to stay in the positive.  “With the dollar trending higher against the yen, we should see more buying than selling. But before the weekend, it’s hard to imagine that players would seek to push the market higher,” Okasan said. The dollar stood at 111.67 yen, holding onto gains made overnight on bright US jobs data, staying higher than 111.11 yen seen in Tokyo on Thursday. Among major shares, Uniqlo-operator Fast Retailing surged 5.87 percent to 58,760 after releasing Thursday a robust six-month earnings report that showed brisk international sales.
Struggling engineering firm Toshiba dropped 3.12 percent to 3,570 after it announced that Chinese chemicals maker ENN Ecological Holdings had decided not to buy the Japanese firm’s liquefied natural gas operations in the United States. The decision deals a serious blow to Toshiba, which is going through painful and sweeping reforms to stay afloat after logging billions of dollars in losses from its disastrous acquisition of US nuclear firm Westinghouse. Panasonic edged up 0.36 percent to 991.4 yen following a report that the firm was suspending plans with US electric vehicle maker Tesla to expand a battery plant in Nevada due to weak demand for the vehicles.
The firms froze a plan to boost the capacity of the Gigafactory 1 battery factory “as concerns mount on Wall Street about weakening demand at Elon Musk’s car company,” Nikkei Asian Review reported. A Tesla spokesperson said, “we will, of course, continue to make new investments in Gigafactory 1, as needed. “However, we think there is far more output to be gained from improving existing production equipment than was previously estimated.”

 

 

M M Alam

M. M. Alam is a Pakistan-based working journalist since 1981. Karachi University faculty gold medalist Alam began his career four decades ago by writing for Dawn, Pakistan’s highest circulating English daily. He has worked for region’s leading publications, global aviation periodicals including Rotors (of USA) and vetted New York Times as permanent employee of daily Express Tribune. Alam regularly covers international aviation and defense-related events including Salon Du Bourget (France), Farnborough (United Kingdom), Dubai (UAE). Alam has reported thousands of events and interviewed hundreds of people in Pakistan, UAE, EU, UK and USA. Being Francophone Alam also coordinates with a number of French publications.