Tokyo stocks close lower after Wall St rout

Tokyo stocks closed lower on Friday following a plunge in US shares on revived worries about the coronavirus and concerns about overheating equity prices.

The benchmark Nikkei fell 0.75 percent or 167.43 points to end at 22,305.48, dropping 2.44 percent over the week.

The broader Topix index lost 1.15 percent or 18.24 points to 1,570.68. It was down 2.59 percent over the week.

"Investors in the Japanese market were discouraged by a rout in US shares, with trade starting with sharp drops," senior market analyst Toshiyuki Kanayama of Monex said in a commentary.

Wall Street stocks plunged Thursday with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting 6.9 percent.

However, after dropping more than three percent at one point, Tokyo stocks pared the losses later in the session as US futures pointed to a positive opening.

After weeks of focusing on the bright side of reopening economies, the mood of investors shifted with rising coronavirus cases in some reopened US states, including Texas and Arizona.

In Tokyo trading, Sony fell 1.21 percent to 7,404 yen while SoftBank Group dropped 2.19 percent to 5,071 yen.

Toyota slipped 0.75 percent to 6,853 yen and Takeda Pharmaceuticals lost 1.79 percent to 3,989 yen.

Uniqlo chain operator Fast Retailing gained 1.07 percent to 64,000 yen.

The dollar fetched 107.20 yen in Asian trade, against 106.86 yen in New York.