1st LD Writethru: Tokyo stocks close lower snapping 3-day winning streak
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E-mail Xinhua, January 15, 2020
TOKYO, Jan. 15 (Xinhua) -- Tokyo stocks closed lower Wednesday, snapping a three-day winning streak, amid a lack of fresh trading cues and some consternation over global trade issues.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 108.59 points, or 0.45 percent, from Tuesday to close the day at 23,916.58.
The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, meanwhile, dropped 9.47 points, or 0.54 percent, to finish at 1,731.06.
The market inherited a mixed lead from Wall Street overnight, although solid earnings reports from JP Morgan and Citigroup added some support, local brokers said.
They added, however, that investors took to selling for profits after the Nikkei's rise over the past three days, which saw the benchmark index add more than 3 percent.
The yen's rise against the U.S. dollar also saw investors pull back from chasing issues higher, opting rather to assume wait-and-see positions to clarify ongoing global trade movements amid a lack of fresh trading cues.
Investors tend to cheer a weaker yen versus the U.S. dollar as exporter-linked issues gain traction and typically buoy the broader market when the yen's tone is softer, investment strategists here said.
A firm yen against a basket of other major currencies diminished the competitiveness of exporters in overseas markets and can adversely affect forward looking earnings and profit guidances, they added.
As such, exporters and cyclical issues, also highly susceptible to external factors, retreated Wednesday.
Hitachi Construction Machinery lost 1.2 percent by the close, while Industrial robotics maker Yaskawa Electric retreated 2.9 percent. TDK, meanwhile, closed the day 1.8 percent lower.
By the close of play, nonferrous metal, mining and electric appliance-linked issues comprised those that declined the most, and issues that fell outpaced those that rose by 1,256 to 781 on the First Section, while 122 ended the day unchanged.
On the main section on Wednesday, 1,122.53 million shares changed hands, dropping from Tuesday's volume of 1,234.06 million shares.
The turnover came to 2,016.8 billion yen (18.34 billion U.S. dollars). Enditem
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