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Tokyo stocks down by break as loss-hit Toshiba dives

Tokyo - Tokyo stocks fell on Friday morning led by major banks and automakers, while Toshiba dived again on renewed worries about huge losses at its embattled US nuclear unit.

The Japanese market took a lead from Wall Street where two of the three main indexes closed down; taking a breather from five-straight days of record closes.

On Friday, Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 110.26 points, to 19 237.27 by the lunch break, while the Topix index of all first-section issues slipped 7.30 points, to 1 543.77.

Investors appeared to be losing enthusiasm as the White House has yet to explain how corporate tax cuts flagged by President Donald Trump last week will be financed.

"With the Trump administration still in a phase where they need to fill key positions, it's dampening the market's view and triggering dollar selling," said Juichi Wako, a senior strategist at Nomura Holdings.

"It'll be hard for the yen to head lower until we have a clearer idea of when the US will hike rates, capping Japanese equities amid a lack of drivers," he told Bloomberg News.

In Asian forex markets, the dollar was trading at ¥113.41 on Friday, up from ¥113.23 in New York Thursday but still down from ¥113.85 in Asia earlier in the day.

A strong yen generally darkens the outlook for Japanese exporters as it reduces the value of repatriated profits and can make their products more expensive abroad.

Major automakers fell, with Toyota slipping 0.88% to finish the morning at ¥6 400, while Nissan fell 0.26% to ¥1 120.5 and Honda lost 0.47% to sit at ¥3 592.

Toshiba's embattled shares dived nearly 10% to ¥182.7, extending three days of losses on lingering worries over a sea of red ink at its US nuclear power business and an investigation into the division's accounting.

In other trading, mobile carrier SoftBank fell 1.26% to ¥8 548 while banking giant Mitsubishi UFJ dropped 1.11% to ¥762.1.

Sharp jumped 2.17% to ¥329 after the company slashed its net loss estimate by more than a quarter to ¥27bn for the year to March, citing lower materials costs.

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