TOKYO (dpa-AFX) - The Japanese stock market is modestly lower on Friday and the safe-haven yen strengthened despite the positive cues overnight from Wall Street, with investors turning cautious ahead of the release of U.S. jobs data for July later in the day. Worries about the rising number of coronavirus cases in Tokyo also dampened sentiment.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 44.42 points or 0.20 percent to 22,373.73, after falling to a low of 22,298.35 earlier. Japanese shares closed lower for a second straight day on Thursday.
Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is adding 0.3 percent and Fast Retailing is edging up less than 0.1 percent.
The major exporters are mostly higher despite a stronger yen. Canon is advancing almost 1 percent, Sony is adding 0.4 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is up 0.2 percent, while Panasonic is declining more than 1 percent.
In the tech space, Advantest is losing more than 4 percent and Tokyo Electron is lower by almost 3 percent. In the financial sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is adding 0.2 percent and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is edging up 0.1 percent.
Among automakers, Honda Motor is declining more than 2 percent, while Toyota is adding more than 1 percent.
On Thursday, Toyota reported a 74 percent fall in first-quarter net income and also forecast a 64 percent drop in full-year profit, while affirming its outlook for full-year sales revenues.
In the oil sector, Inpex is higher by more than 5 percent and Japan Petroleum is adding more than 1 percent even as crude oil prices declined overnight.
Among the other major gainers, Dena Co. is gaining almost 9 percent, Marui Group is rising more than 6 percent and Bandai Namco is higher by more than 5 percent.
Conversely, Furukawa Electric is tumbling more than 12 percent and Mitsubishi Materials is losing almost 10 percent. Shiseido Co. and Sumco Corp. are lower by more than 9 percent each.
In economic news, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said that the average of household spending in Japan was down 1.2 percent on year in June, coming in at 273,699 yen. That beat forecasts for a decline of 7.5 percent following the 16.2 percent tumble in May.
Japan will also see June numbers for its leading and coincident indexes today.
In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the mid 105 yen-range on Friday.
On Wall Street, stocks closed higher on Thursday, as tech stocks continued to outperform the broader markets. Positive sentiment may also have been generated in reaction to a Labor Department report showing first-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits pulled back by much more than expected in the week ended August 1. The report said initial jobless claims tumbled to 1.186 million, a decrease of 249,000 from the previous week's revised level of 1.435 million. Economists had expected jobless claims to edge down to 1.415 million from the 1.434 million originally reported for the previous week.
The Nasdaq surged up 109.67 points or 1 percent to 11,108.07, the Dow advanced 185.46 points or 0.7 percent to 27,386.98 and the S&P 500 climbed 21.39 points or 0.6 percent to 3,349.16.
The major European markets all moved to the downside on Thursday. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index tumbled by 1.3 percent, while the French CAC 40 Index slumped by 1 percent and the German DAX Index slid by 0.5 percent.
Crude oil futures snapped a four-day winning streak and ended modestly lower on Thursday as traders weighed crude demand and supply levels amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. WTI crude for September declined $0.24 or nearly 0.6 percent to $41.95 a barrel.
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