Tokyo stocks snap nine-day winning streak, Nintendo tumbles
TOKYO: Tokyo’s benchmark index yesterday snapped a nineday winning streak as the yen’s uptick hit exporters while Nintendo tumbled seven per cent with investors underwhelmed by its latest mobile game.
Shares were hit by profit taking and a stronger yen on concerns about China-US tensions after Beijing seized a US Navy drone in international waters in the South China Sea.
The tensions pushed traders into the Japanese unit, which is seen as a safe-haven investment in times of turmoil.
A stronger yen hurts the profitability of Japan’s major exporters, hitting demand for their shares.
The dollar fell to 117.31 yen in Tokyo, well down from levels above 118 yen seen at the end of last week.
Investors are also watching a two-day Bank of Japan policy meeting starting Monday, though market consensus is there will be no change to policy.
“The speed of the yen’s fall has been too fast since the currency surpassed the 115 to the dollar mark,” said Hiroyasu Iida, the head of the investment research centre at Aizawa Securities.
“The direction is still for a weaker yen but there could be a brief rebound. The BoJ is likely to stay put, but given the yen’s weakness, investors will have to remain wary over the odds of potential tapering, though chances are slim.”
Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 slipped 0.05 per cent, or 9.55 points, to end the day at 19,391.60, ending its longest string of gains since mid-2015.
The broader Topix index of all first- section shares slipped 0.10 per cent, or 1.61 points, to 1,549.06.
Nintendo shares dropped 7.06 per cent to 24,540 yen, extending a more than four per cent fall Friday as its latest iPhone game, Super Mario Run, met with lukewarm reviews.
Some analysts warned that the nearly US$10 price tag to buy the game’s full version – the initial stages are free – could scare away some customers.
“Investor expectations were very strong,” Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute, told Bloomberg News.
“There are a lot of people writing on the App Store that Super Mario Run isn’t very fun. Perhaps expectations were too high.”
Mobile carrier SoftBank fell 0.11 per cent to 7,822 yen while Toyota declined 0.15 per cent to 7,144 yen.
Panasonic slipped 0.81 per cent to 1,281 yen, with Canon down 0.32 per cent at 3,417 yen. — AFP