By Brad Frischkorn TOKYO--Tokyo stocks slipped Friday in a quiet session as a weaker dollar invited profit-taking in heavily weighted shares after seven straight days of index gains. Activity was subdued with few incentives to trade after the ending of the 16-day U.S. Federal government shutdown, and with a slew of delayed U.S. economic data yet to be released. The Nikkei Stock Average fell 24.97 points, or 0.2%, to 14,561.54 following the prior session's 0.8% rise. The benchmark added 5.3% during the winning streak up to the end of trading on Thursday. The Topix index of all the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues also lost 0.73 point, or 0.1%, to 1,205.52, with 18 of 33 subindexes ending in negative territory. Overall volume totaled just 2.06 billion shares worth Y1.6 trillion. The market was listless from the start following a mixed overnight Wall Street performance, as the dollar found it difficult to rise beyond the Y98 level. The greenback was changing hands at around Y97.97 as of the close of TSE trading at 0600 GMT, compared with Y98.46 at the same time the previous day. "The resolution of the U.S. debt ceiling/government shutdown problem is merely temporary and will almost certainly invite another standoff in January," said Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. strategist Daisuke Uno, noting that the extension to the U.S. federal government's borrowing limit runs only to Feb. 7. "These kinds of disruptions will hurt the U.S. economy enough so that the Fed will just keep putting off its tapering program. Thus, dollar-strengthening targets above the Y100 level may be unrealistic as will be robust Nikkei gains, which are largely dependent on a weaker-yen scenario," he added. "Players have been waiting three weeks for regular U.S. government data to trade on but have been denied by the shutdown," added an equity trading director at a foreign brokerage, pointing to the release of nonfarm payrolls figures next week. "There is naturally a great deal of hesitation to trade the broader market 'blind.'" Heavily weighted Fast Retailing and KDDI led the market lower after recent strong gains. The pair shed 0.9% to Y33,850 and 1.1% to Y5,290 after adding 0.9% each on Thursday. Among yen-sensitive exporters, Kyocera fell 0.6% to Y5,070 and Toyota Motor lost 0.9% to Y6,280. Shares of companies with exposure to China ended mostly lower after data released midday showed that the nation's gross domestic product grew 7.8% from a year earlier in the July-September period, compared with 7.7% in the first quarter and 7.5% in the second quarter. While the figure was in line with economists' expectations it failed to spark buying interest. Komatsu fell 1.1% to Y2,366 while Fanuc lost 1.5% to Y16,740. Earnings-related news affected Skymark Airlines, which fell 0.6% to Y351 after announcing a possible decline in its fiscal year parent-only net profit by 47% from a year earlier to Y2 billion--weaker than its previously estimated Y3.3 billion profit. Olympus also slipped 0.2% to Y3,095 after a Nikkei report that the company likely logged a below-market-view group operating profit of around Y30 billion vs market expectations of Y30.4 billion for the fiscal half year ended September. Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal dropped 1.5% to Y337 after a Credit Suisse downgrade to Neutral from Outperform citing overpricing, as well as a series of earnings warnings from steel pipe maker rivals Vallourec and Tenaris, raising concerns about earnings risk.

Source