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Yen flattens Tokyo
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September 3, 1999: 6:14 a.m. ET
Nikkei ends unchanged as yen regains strength; U.S. rate fears hit markets
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Tokyo's blue chips posted a flat finish Friday as they succumbed to the selling pressures that beset most of the region.
The Nikkei 225 closed just 1 point lower at 17,629.99 after Japan's headline index had spent most of the session in the black. The late slide was triggered by strengthening of the yen which rose to 109.54 against the dollar after trading most of the day above the 110 level.
"It's a tug-of-war between those who see the yen's strength as a sign of an economic recovery, and those who focus on the negative impact of the strong yen," said Kazunori Jinnai, deputy general manager at Daiwa Securities.
Many Japanese blue chips are reliant on exports for a large proportion of their earnings and a stronger yen eats into dollar-related sales.
Japanese blue chips had defied the wider sell-off across Asia on the dollar's short-lived strengthening against the yen. The reversal on the currency market hit stocks as investors also sought to shore up positions ahead of key U.S. jobs data due later Friday.
The Nikkei 225 gained 31 points for the week.
Wall Street suffered another set-back Thursday as strong economic data heightened fears that a further interest rate hike is imminent.
The Dow Jones industrial average closed at 10,843.21 with a loss of 95 points. The Nasdaq composite fell almost 17 points to 2,734.24, while the S&P 500 index declined 12 to 1,319.11.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng regained some of its earlier losses by the close, but still ended firmly in the red. The index fell 189 points or 1.4 percent to end at 13,178.31, a loss of 1.5 percent for the week.
The release of U.S. jobs data later in the day weighed on the market. "The sentiment is very cautious and people are selling ahead of the unemployment figures," said Charles Cheung, executive director of J&A Securities.
The Straits Times index in Singapore was also firmly lower, down 1.1 percent, or 25 points, at 2,093.18.
Sydney's All Ordinaries also suffered amid the fall-out from the United States, as blue chips shed more than 1 percent to close at 2,962.4. Financial stocks dragged the index down, while gold stocks bucked the trend.
Three markets in the region shrugged off the downbeat sentiment. South Korea's Kospi rose 1.3 percent to close at 910.62 after its large semiconductor makers benefited from a rise in D-RAM chip prices.
Kuala Lumpur gained a similar amount to close 10 points higher at 745.32, while Thailand's Set index bounced into the black in afternoon trade to end more than 1 percent higher at 431.12.
Taiwan's Weighted index closed 1.9 percent lower at 8,073.97, while Manila's Composite slipped just into the minus column, down 4 points at 2,155.09.
The JSX index in Indonesia ended 1 percent lower at 565.20.
-- from staff and wire reports
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