Tokyo stocks fell Monday, tracking losses on Wall Street, with a strong yen dragging on exporters, while investors awaited key corporate earnings. The dollar suffered fresh losses at the start of the week on lower expectations for underfire Donald Trump's ability to push through his economic agenda. The collapse of his crucial health care reforms this month raised questions about his planned tax cuts and infrastructure spending measures - which had helped propel global markets and the dollar after the tycoon's November election win.
"The yen's strength directly hit the market today," Hikaru Sato, senior technical analyst at the investment strategy section of Daiwa Securities, told AFP. The dollar was changing hands at 111.14 yen Monday, hardly changed from 111.13 yen in New York at the end of last week, but off the 111.84 yen seen in Tokyo on Friday. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.62 percent, or 124.08 points, to close at 19,975.67, while the Topix index of all first-section issues declined 0.52 percent, or 8.42 points, to 1,621.57. Hiroyasu Iida, head of the investment research centre at Aizawa Securities, told Bloomberg News: "Doubts over the Trump administration's ability to implement its policies, with the White House press secretary's resignation and all, are spurring expectations the pace of US rate hikes will slow, putting the yen on an upward trend." Trump named Anthony Scaramucci, a millionaire New York financier, to helm the White House press operation, as a probe into alleged collusion by the campaign with Russia during the election widens. Scaramucci's appointment led to the resignation of beleaguered press secretary Sean Spicer, adding to the sense of uncertainty in the administration. On Friday, Wall Street's three main indexes slipped on mixed earnings and lower oil prices, ending the Nasdaq's streak of 10 straight gains that included three consecutive closing records.
In Tokyo trade, Toyota dropped 0.77 percent to 6,079 yen and Nissan fell 0.53 percent to 1,130 yen. Honda declined 1.11 percent to 3,042 yen.
Nintendo, which releases quarterly earnings on Wednesday, dropped 2.63 percent to 36,240 yen and Sony lost 1.18 percent to 4,485 yen. Banking giant Mitsubishi UFJ was off 1.15 percent at 705.4 yen.