A pedestrian looks at an electric quotation board displaying the numbers on the Nikkei 225 index at the Tokyo Stock Exchange. (AFP)
Tokyo stocks opened lower on Monday, following Wall Street’s lead, as investors awaited a series of key events, starting with China’s manufacturing data later in the day.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.49 percent or 106.74 points at 21,772.16 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was down 0.72 percent or 11.57 points at 1,592.68.
“The Tokyo market is seen starting with falls, weighed down by losses in the US market, with investors’ eyes on the Chinese manufacturing PMI indicator due at 0100 GMT, Yutaka Masushima, market analyst at Monex, said in a note.
The dollar fetched 107.95 yen in early Asian trade, unchanged from the level in New York on Friday.
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Market participants were also awaiting key events and data later this week, including the Bank of Japan’s Tankan quarterly business confidence survey on Tuesday, and a sales tax hike also on Tuesday, analysts said.
Negative impact from the sales tax hike on domestic demand this time “will likely be smaller than the previous tax hike” in 2014, Mitsuhiro Shibuya, senior strategist at Daiwa Securities said.
In individual share trading, automakers were among losers, with Toyota trading down 1.49 percent at 7,259 yen, Honda down 0.51 percent at 2,825.5 yen and Nissan off 0.67 percent at 681.3 yen.
Some other blue-chip exporters were also lower, with Canon slipping 0.75 percent to 2,904 yen and Hitachi falling 1.22 percent at 4.031 yen.
On Wall Street, the Dow ended down 0.3 percent at 26,820.25.
