TOKYO, Japan (AFP) — Tokyo shares tumbled on Friday, extending losses to a fifth day and tracking a global retreat fanned by worries over the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 dropped 3.67 percent, or 805.27 points, to 21,142.96 — leaving it down 9.59 percent in a holiday-shortened week.
The broader Topix index lost 3.65 percent, or 57.19 points, to 1,510.87 to close with the weekly loss of 9.74 percent.
European and US markets were hammered on Thursday as infections continued to spread around the world, with several new countries reporting cases.
On Wall Street, all three major indices shed more than four percent in one of the worst weeks for equities since the 2008 financial crisis.
“Tokyo shares fell after the Dow (suffered) its worst one-day point drop in history over fears of the spread of new virus infections and concerns over a slump in earnings,” Okasan Online Securities strategist Yoshihiro Ito said in a commentary.
A stronger yen also hit exporters, with the yen changing hands at 108.87 yen in Asian trade against 109.69 yen in New York on Thursday afternoon.
A slew of Japanese economic data released early Friday signaled further headwinds.
Factory production in January edged up 0.8 percent from December while the jobless rate rose to 2.4 percent from 2.2 percent in December, the first worsening in four months.
Seiichi Suzuki, the senior market analyst at Tokai Tokyo Research Institute, said no one knew when the market sell-off would stop.
“The bottom could be today or one week ahead… As for the spread of the virus, even infectious diseases experts don’t know. How can market people know?” he told AFP.
IT investor SoftBank Group tumbled 4.31 percent to 5,013 yen.
Major exporters fell. Toyota Motor lost 3.48 percent to 7,127 yen and Sony was down 3.86 percent at 6,611 yen.
Oriental Land, which operates Tokyo’s two Disney parks, closed up 0.65 percent at 12,265 yen.
The stock had fallen more than four percent in early trade on fears that the company would close the hugely popular Disneyland and DisneySea over the outbreak of the new coronavirus.
But it rallied after its announcement that it would only close the parks for around two weeks.
© Agence France-Presse
