Tokyo's Nikkei Index Flat by Break amid Global Economy Fears
Tokyo's benchmark stock index was flat Tuesday morning, as another slump in oil prices and weak data out of China and Japan reignited concerns about the global economy.
The Japanese market picked up a weak lead from Wall Street, where the main indices ended in the red on Monday following the slide in crude prices.
The Dow shed 0.14 percent, the S&P 500 fell 0.22 percent and the Nasdaq dropped 0.15 percent.
"We saw the lowest turnover this year again yesterday, but I expect that to improve today," Toshihiko Matsuno, chief strategist at SMBC Friend Securities, told Bloomberg News.
"That said, it'll be difficult to see much of a direction in the market. The overseas market was lackluster, so Japanese stocks may lose some of the gains made yesterday."
"Movement in Chinese shares will continue to have an effect on other markets," Matsuno said.
Oil prices, which had enjoyed a brief push upward last week, resumed their downward slide following disappointing industrial data out of China and Japan and a Saudi budget plan that suggested the petroleum-exporting giant is planning for oil prices to stay down.
At the lunch break, the Nikkei 225 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange edged down 0.08 points to 18,873.27, while the Topix index of all first-section shares rose 0.19 percent, or 2.84 points, to 1,532.06.
Some major exporters turned lower as the yen picked up against the dollar, with the greenback at 120.26 yen from 120.38 yen Monday in New York.
Toyota shares slipped 0.80 percent to 7,424 yen, Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing, a market heavyweight, fell 0.99 percent to 42,170 yen while Nintendo bucked the downtrend, rising 1.88 percent to 16,760 yen.
Toshiba gained 1.24 percent to 228.8 yen, as the crisis-hit firm's chief executive told the Sankei daily in an interview that he wants to sell off its home appliances and personal computer divisions.
The stock was hammered last week as Toshiba rolled out a wide-ranging restructuring which included thousands of job cuts, and warned it would book a record $4.5 billion annual loss.
The announcement came in the wake of an embarrassing profit-padding scandal.