Tokyo shares fall by break on last trading day of year

Tokyo shares edged down Friday morning, on the final trading day of 2016, taking their downward lead from the US and a stronger yen.

But shares in troubled Toshiba jumped following a three-day bloodletting in which investors dumped shares over a massive one-time loss.

Tokyo stumbled after Wall Street finished slightly lower, retreating further from the 20,000-point milestone.

"Markets are extremely thin and perhaps position tuning occurred," Shigeki Yoshitoshi, head of Japan foreign-exchange and commodities sales at Australia & New Zealand Bank Group in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News.

Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.40 percent, or 77.40 points, to 19,067.74 by the break.

The broader Topix index of all first-section issues lost 0.35 percent, or 5.33 points, to 1,513.06.

"Purchasing on dips and some buying back" of shares are keeping the Nikkei above the 19,000 level, Yoshihiro Ito, chief strategist at Okasan Securities, wrote in a blog.

Toshiba was up 9.04 percent at 282.1 yen, after losing some 40 percent from Tuesday through Thursday.

The company this week warned of a possible loss of several billion dollars in its US nuclear business though said the exact figure had yet to be determined, which fuelled investor anxiety.

Auto parts maker Takata, meanwhile, surged 21.21 percent to 857 yen by the break, adding to a 16.47 percent jump the day before after news it is close to settling a US criminal probe into an exploding airbag scandal.

Market heavyweight Fast Retailing, meanwhile, was down 1.31 percent at 42,100 yen.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shed 0.1 percent to 19,819.78.

The broad-based S&P 500 slipped marginally to 2,249.26, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.1 percent to 5,432.09.

In currencies, the dollar bought 116.40 yen at midday in Tokyo, down modestly from 116.63 yen in New York and from above 117 yen earlier this week.

A stronger yen can negatively impact Japanese exporters as it makes them less competitive abroad and decreases repatriated profits.

Sony was down 1.0 percent at 3,266 yen, while Nissan fell 0.46 percent at 1,175 yen.