TOKYO, April 26 — Tokyo stocks opened lower today amid investor caution ahead of an unprecedented 10 days of holidays beginning this weekend, with a stronger yen against the dollar also weighing on the market.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index dropped 0.62 per cent, or 138.21 points, to 22,169.37 in early trade, while the broader Topix index was off 0.58 per cent, or 9.45 points, at 1,610.83.

“The fall in the Dow in New York and a stronger yen are seen as factors behind falls in early trade in the Japanese market,” Okasan Online Securities said in a commentary.

“Today’s trade lacks a sense of direction ahead of 10 days of holidays,” it said.

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Investors were also closely watching corporate earnings reports, analysts said.

The dollar traded at ¥‎111.51 (RM4.15) in early Asian trade, down from ¥‎111.61 in New York.

In Tokyo, Nintendo was down 3.73 per cent at ¥‎37,070 following two pieces of major news about the company.

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Late yesterday, it unveiled its latest earnings results, showing full-year profit jumping nearly 40 per cent year-on-year to ¥‎194 billion.

And today, it said was working with Chinese internet firm Tencent to roll out its popular Switch console in China.

Even though the latter “is definitely positive news,” the shares are down “because people wanted to square positions before the holidays,” Hideki Yasuda, an analyst at Ace Research Institute told AFP.

Elsewhere, chip-testing equipment maker Advantest dived 8.99 per cent to ¥‎3,135 after it said its full-year operating profit for the year to March 2020 will drop 53.6 per cent to ¥‎30 billion.

Sony was down 2.24 per cent at ¥‎5,139 and construction machine maker Komatsu was off 1.51 per cent at ¥‎2,794 ahead of the companies’ earnings reports due later in the day.

Investors mainly shrugged off a series of official data released before the opening bell.

Japan’s industrial output in March fell 0.9 per cent month-on-month after a 0.7-per cent rise the previous month, the industry ministry said.

Other data confirmed Japan’s labour market remains tight, with unemployment rate edging up by 0.2 percentage points to 2.5 per cent but the job offers-to-applicants ratio unchanged at 1.63 — meaning 163 jobs are available for every 100 job seekers.

On Wall Street, the Dow ended down 0.5 per cent at 26,495.56. — AFP