TOKYO: Tokyo investors will be eyeing Japanese corporate earnings and fresh US data in the next week, which will be shortened by holidays.
A barrage of key US figures, including retail sales, housing figures and industrial production data, are due after all-important jobs numbers later yesterday.
The Tokyo market will have to play catch-up with markets closed on Monday and Tuesday for national holidays, with normal trading resuming on Wednesday.
Major Japanese firms, including Nintendo and Toyota, will announce their fiscal year earnings, with investors expecting generally solid profits as companies benefited from a weak yen and a pickup in the economy.
“The market is focusing on the corporate outlook for the year to March 2015, including how firms are viewing the impact of a consumption tax hike,” Nomura Securities said in a note to clients.
Japan hiked its sales tax to 8.0 percent from 5.0 percent on April 1, a move seen as key to cutting its huge national debt but one that has aggravated fears about a downturn in consumer spending and the wider economy.
Yesterday, the benchmark Nikkei 225 index slipped 0.19 percent as profit-taking set in while investors await the US jobs report later in the day. Investors want to see if the report confirms expectations that the world’s biggest economy is rebounding after a near-stall in the first quarter.
The Nikkei lost 27.62 points to finish at 14,457.51, but rose 0.19 percent over the week. The headline index is down about 11 percent since the start of the year.
The broader Topix index of all first-section shares was flat, inching up 0.02 percent, or 0.28 points to 1,182.48. It rose 1.07 percent over the week.
Sony shares were down 0.55 percent to 1,800 yen, after warning of a bigger-than-expected annual loss after markets closed Thursday.
The electronics giant said it would book a 130bn yen net loss ($1.27bn) in the latest fiscal year to March, while it slashed its operating earnings outlook. It had earlier predicted a 110bn yen loss.
AFP
