Tokyo stocks open lower on price concerns

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TOKYO, March 5, 2021 (BSS/AFP) – 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.