Tokyo stocks open lower on price concerns

TOKYO: Tokyo stocks opened lower on Friday, extending a rout on Wall Street, where investors were disappointed by Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell's response to inflation fears.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index was down 0.65 percent or 188.96 points at 28,741.15 in early trade, while the broader Topix index slipped 0.38 percent or 7.25 points to 1,877.49.

"Investors were discouraged by the rise in US 10-year Treasury yields," Mizuho Securities said.

"However, after a certain amount of sell-offs, bargain-hunting purchases will likely support the market" partly helped by a cheaper yen, it added.

Investors were also monitoring China's National People's Congress, which opened Friday, analysts said.

The dollar fetched 107.85 yen in early Asian trade, against 107.95 yen in New York and 107.12 yen in Tokyo late Thursday.

Uniqlo casual wear operator Fast Retailing dropped 4.54 percent to 94,720 after a brokerage firm revised down its evaluation of the shares.

Sony was down 2.08 percent at 10,815 yen and Canon was off 2.98 percent at 2,212 yen.

Automakers were mixed, with Toyota trading down 1.40 percent at 7,811 yen while Nissan was up 0.39 percent at 592.6 yen.

Honda was down 0.10 percent after it said it will launch the world's first level-three self-driving cars. Vehicle autonomy is classified along a scale from 0-5, with 5 indicating essentially total autonomy.

On Wall Street, all three major stock indices closed lower after investors were disappointed by Powell's speech, despite the central bank chair saying price increases are not an immediate concern.

Apparently markets wanted more, and the yield on 10-year US Treasury notes spiked to 1.55 percent, the highest this week and near the peak of the past year -- igniting a stock sell-off with the Dow ending down 1.1 percent at 30,924.14.