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Tokyo slips at close
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June 18, 1999: 5:06 a.m. ET
Nikkei ends just inside the minus column amid a subdued session in Asia
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LONDON LONDON (CNNfn) - Asian markets hardly flinched as the more positive outlook for U.S. interest rates boosted Wall Street overnight. Tokyo ended Friday just in the red, after anticipating the more benign rate position of the Federal Reserve with a strong rally Thursday.
Tokyo's Nikkei 225 closed 39.19 points lower at 17,431.26, a fall of 0.22 percent, after a late selloff pulled shares back from a new intra-day high for the year.
"The pitch of the Nikkei's rise has been quite steep, so after its gains a slight correction was probably in order," Katsumi Nishiyama, chief of stock trading at Kokusai Securities, told Reuters.
Investors lost interest after buoying the Nikkei to a 20-month closing high Thursday in anticipation that the U.S. Federal Reserve would take a less aggressive stance on interest rate hikes. The small losses left Japan's leading index up 1.35 percent for the week.
The market stance appeared to be confirmed later Thursday when Alan Greenspan's cautious testimony before a congressional committee suggested that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates pre-emptively, as a one-time event.
The words of the Fed chairman boosted Wall Street with all the main indices closing in positive territory. The Dow Jones industrial average ended Thursday 56.68 points higher at 10,841.63.
Sony Corp. closed 1.15 percent higher at 12,290 yen amid reports that government was close to granting it license to run telecommunications services.
Selected auto stocks were strong for the second successive session, with Mazda up 2.56 percent at 682 yen after concluding a deal to supply Mitsubishi Motors with commercial vehicles on an original equipment manufacture basis. Mitsubishi shares jumped 4.15 percent to end at 652 yen.
Elsewhere in Asia, markets had a fairly quiet session, with Hong Kong and Taiwan both closed for a public holiday.
South Korea's Kospi index closed up 5.47 points, or 0.66 percent, to end at 837.73. Investors remained cautious as the ongoing naval stand-off in the Yellow Sea with North Korea continued and the U.S. navy aimed to diffuse the situation.
Singapore's Straits Times index was up 0.44 percent at 2,066.36 in late trade, while Sydney's All Ordinaries ended the session almost flat but in positive territory. Australian blue chips closed just 4.7 points higher at 2,985.0, with financial stocks once again the strongest performers.
Earlier, Philippine blue chips closed higher to end 11.56 points higher, or 0.48 percent, at 2,429.64.
Kuala Lumpur's Composite index made late gains and was up 5.33 points at 793.12 points just before the close. Bangkok's Set index was almost flat, less than 1 point higher at 521.46.
Jakarta's blue chips rallied strongly in anticipation of positive news from a series of meetings between government and International Monetary Fund officials. The JSX index was 3.4 percent higher at 703.91.
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