TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is lower on Friday, following the mixed cues overnight from Wall Street and on a stronger yen. Investors are cautious ahead of the release of U.S. jobs data later in the day.
In late-morning trades, the benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 105.48 points or 0.57 percent to 18,407.64, off a low of 18,370.79 earlier.
Among the major exporters, Sony is down more than 2 percent, while Canon is adding 0.3 percent and Panasonic is advancing more than 1 percent. Toshiba is unchanged.
Automaker Toyota is losing 0.3 percent and Honda is edging down less than 0.1 percent. Fast Retailing is lower by 0.7 percent and Softbank is edging down less than 0.1 percent.
In the oil space, Inpex is rising 0.3 percent and JX Holdings is adding 0.5 percent after crude oil prices jumped overnight.
Among the other major gainers, Resona Holdings and Mitsubishi UFJ are higher by more than 4 percent each, while Nomura Holdings is gaining almost 4 percent.
On the flip side, DeNA Co. is losing almost 7 percent after the mobile gaming company closed eight additional curated-content websites, Screen Holdings is falling 6 percent and Sumco Corp. is down more than 5 percent.
In economic news, the Bank of Japan said that the monetary base in Japan was up 21.5 percent on year in November, coming in at 417.657 trillion yen. That follows the 22.1 percent spike in October.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar traded in the upper 113 yen-range on Friday.
On Wall Street, stocks turned in a mixed performance on Thursday as traders digested OPEC's decision to curtail oil output as well as the latest batch of U.S. economic data.
The Dow rose 68.35 points or 0.4 percent to a new record closing high of 19,191.93, while the Nasdaq tumbled 72.57 points or 1.4 percent to 5,251.11, and the S&P 500 fell 7.73 points or 0.4 percent to 2,191.08.
The major European markets moved to the downside on Thursday. While the German DAX Index slumped by 1 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the French CAC 40 Index fell by 0.5 percent and 0.4 percent, respectively.
Crude oil futures surged Thursday, after OPEC surprisingly announced a deal to curb supplies. WTI crude for January delivery jumped $1.62 or 3.3 percent to settle at $51.06 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
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