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Tokyo - Tokyo stocks fell 0.69% Friday morning as the dollar weakened against the yen following losses on Wall Street fuelled by disappointing US corporate results.
The benchmark Nikkei-225 index slipped 108.01 points to 15 639.19 by the break, while the Topix index of all first-section shares edged down 0.23%, or 2.98 points, to 1 291.41.
On Thursday, the US Department of Labor reported weekly jobless claims fell to 326 000, indicating the jobs market is recovering slowly. Also, it said core consumer prices - which exclude volatile energy and food prices - rose just 0.1% in December.
The yearly rate was 1.5%, and the core rate was up 1.7%, below the Federal Reserve's 2.0% target.
On the corporate side US electronics retailer Best Buy plunged 28.6 percent on Wall Street after saying November-December same-store sales were 0.8 percent lower than the previous year's holiday shopping season.
Citigroup took a hit with below-forecast earnings and chip giant Intel also sank in after-market trade as it said net profit last year fell 13%.
"Intel Corp's earnings miss and lukewarm forecast are likely to have a measurable impact on Japanese stocks, given its size and influence in the PC market," Okasan Securities director Takashi Matsumoto told Dow Jones Newswires.
The Dow fell 0.39% and the S&P 500 slipped 0.13% a day after hitting a record high but the Nasdaq edged up 0.09%.
In forex trading, the drifted to 104.28 yen in morning Tokyo trade, from 104.37 yen in New York Thursday, as a Japanese government monthly report described the economy as "recovering" for the first time in six years.
