Tokyo shares down

Tokyo shares fell Thursday as investors took profits a day after the Nikkei closed at a six-month high, but IT firm Fujitsu soared almost eight percent as it said it was in talks to merge its PC with business with China's Lenovo. The Nikkei has rallied in recent weeks as growing expectations the Federal Reserve will lift interest rates has pushed the dollar up against the yen, providing support to Japan's exporters.
A strong yen eats into Japanese exporters' repatriated income and usually pulls the stock market down. However, analysts said shares had likely hit a ceiling. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.32 percent, or 55.42 points, to 17,336.42 while the Topix index of all first-section issues gave up 0.05 percent, or 0.69 points, to 1,382.01.
"Unless the yen weakens beyond 105 per dollar, the upside (of the overall market) is limited," Mitsushige Akino, an executive officer at Ichiyoshi Investment Management Co, told Bloomberg News. The dollar was trading at 104.62 yen, down from 104.51 yen late in New York. Investors have also voiced concerns over a sell-off in crude, which is sitting at three-month lows owing to concerns about the viability of a planned output cut by the Opec exporters grouping and Russia.
Fujitsu soared 7.83 percent to 599.3 yen after announcing the talks to merge its struggling PC unit with Lenovo, the world's biggest PC maker. Tokyo-based Fujitsu said the two sides were "exploring a strategic cooperation in the realm of research, development, design and manufacturing of personal computers for the global market". Market heavyweight Fast Retailing, operator of casual fashion brand Uniqlo, fell 1.09 percent to 519.4 and Sony slipped 0.69 percent to 3,302.
Camera and printer giant Canon dropped 3.00 percent to 2,961.5 yen as it slashed its annual profit forecast, warning a slowdown in emerging economies and a strong yen were taking a bite out of the bottom line. Nintendo, which also cut its full-year outlook Wednesday blaming disappointing Wii U game sales and a pick-up in the yen, started the trading day in the negative territory but ended up 1.49 percent to 24,885.