Tokyo weaker on U.S. tech falls

TOKYO, Japan -- Tokyo stocks were lower at the open on Monday amid concerns over the faltering economy and persistent weakness on the U.S. Nasdaq.

Electronics giant Sony and Toshiba Corp, Japan's top chip producer, were early losers. Toshiba fell 0.94 percent to 635 yen.

The benchmark Nikkei average was down 0.31 percent or 39.95 points to 12,750.43 in early trade, while the capital-weighted TOPIX index was 0.25 percent or 3.17 points lower at 1,262.15.

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Elsewhere in the region, markets in Australia and Korea were also weaker. The S&P/ASX200 was 23.9 points lower at 3391.8, while Seoul's Kospi was down 7.42 points to 611.54.

In the U.S., the tech-laden Nasdaq index fell 0.77 percent on Friday to mark its sixth straight day of losses, hit in large part by Nortel Networks' announcement of a stunning $19.2 billion second-quarter loss.

Bad news factored in

But traders said most of the bad news out of New York and on the economy had been factored in last week, when the Nikkei lost 4.8 percent to its lowest close since April 10.

"Early morning trade looks weak on Wall Street's falls, but we will soon reach a point today where it won't make sense to sell techs lower," said Masayoshi Okamoto, a trader at Jujiya Securities.

Fujitsu Ltd, a major PC and chipmaker, gained 0.87 percent to 1,389 yen after falling on Friday to a closing level last seen in November 1998. Canon and NEC were also stronger.

In the telecommunications sector, Japan Telecom Co Ltd fell 1.23 percent to 2.41 million yen after its mobile unit, J-Phone East, said it would cut its cellular service charges from July to compete against industry leader NTT DoCoMo Inc.

DoCoMo lost 1.94 percent to 2.02 million yen.

Mitsubishi Financial Group added 1.3 percent to 1.01 million yen, underlining modest gains in banks after their sector subindex had fallen to its lowest point since the crisis days of October 1998.

At the weekend, the Asahi Shimbun newspaper said an economic panel headed by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi plans to cut Japan's 1.7 percent 2001/02 growth forecast and unveil an estimate of 0.5 percent growth for the next two to three years.

Reuters contributed to this report.