Nikkei and Yen Ease in Quiet Trading

E-mini futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index slipped 0.1 per cent after the underlying measure fell 0.2 per cent in a shortened trading session yesterday, as energy shares pared their strongest weekly gains since October.

The dollar hit a near two-month low against the yen overnight.

The U.S. and European markets were closed on December 25 for the Christmas Day holiday.

The dollar also touched an 8 week low against then Yen, finishing at 120.11 yen.

A man walks past an electronic board showing graphs of recent Japan’s Nikkei share average outside a brokerage in Tokyo, Japan, December 1, 2015. On Friday, Tokyo closed lower, as a strong yen dented exporters, with most Asian markets shut for a public holiday.

Market heavyweight Fast Retailing is declining more than 1 percent, while SoftBank is adding nearly 2 percent.

The broader Topix index of all First Section issues on the Tokyo Stock Exchange was up 6.24 points, or 0.41 percent, to 1,522.43. In share trading, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries dropped 4.64% to ¥517.5 after it said Thursday it was postponing delivery of the first made-in-Japan passenger jet by one year to the second quarter of 2018.

The turnover was about 1,543.3 billion yen (about 12.81 billion USA dollars).

The shares were hammered this week after Toshiba warned over a record $4.5bn annual loss and thousands of layoffs following an embarrassing profit-padding scandal.

Monday’s decline in factory output was worse than market expectations for 0.4 percent contraction.

J. Front Retailing Co Ltd increased 2% to 1,847 yen after the apparel retailer reported net sales in the nine-month ending in November jumped 2.5% from a year ago to 849.33 billion yen. Unitika is rising nearly 4 percent and IHI Corp.is gaining more than 3 percent.