Tokyo stocks 0.77% lower by break

Tokyo stocks fell 0.77 percent Wednesday morning, extending losses from the previous day after the Bank of Japan's monetary policy announcement provided no surprises.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 index shed 82.47 points to 10,627.46 by the break, while the broader Topix index of all first-section shares was down 0.67 percent, or 6.06 points, at 895.09.

Japan's central bank on Tuesday adopted a two-percent inflation target following government pressure, in a bid to tackle long-running deflation, and launched an unlimited asset purchase scheme to kick in from next year.

However, with the measures already factored into prices over the past few weeks dealers took their money off the table soon after the announcement.

"The BoJ monetary policy announcement came so completely within range of market expectations that it rang as a disappointment," SMBC Nikko Securities general manager of equities Hiroichi Nishi told Dow Jones Newswires.

A stronger yen tends to weigh on Tokyo's stock market as its hurts exporters by making their products less competitive overseas.

By the break, Sony was off 0.92 percent at 1,181 yen, Nikon fell 2.08 percent to 2,582 yen and Toyota was down 1.17 percent at 4,190 yen.

In forex trade, the greenback eased to 88.63 yen, from 88.68 yen in New York late Tuesday, while the euro fetched 118.03 yen from 118.14 yen.

Japan's hawkish new premier Shinzo Abe on Tuesday describing the policies, outlined in a rare joint BoJ-government statement, as "epoch making".

But some observers were underwhelmed, criticising the inflation target's vague timeline and saying 13 trillion yen in planned monthly asset purchases was unlikely to save the economy.

"Calling a policy 'bold' does not necessarily make it so," London-based Capital Economics said in a note.

Abe, who swept to power last month, has moved to bring BoJ policies into line with his new government's plan for big spending and aggressive monetary policy to stoke growth.

In other stock trading, Olympus gained 0.95 percent to 2,004 yen after jumping more than six percent on Tuesday on hopes that the camera and medical equipment maker would be taken off the Tokyo Stock Exchange's "supervisory post" that signals a possible delisting.

The company was put on the list after a high-profile accounting scandal.