Japan Stocks Pull Back As Yen Moves Higher

Japan's Nikkei Stock Average sat 0.8% lower in early Monday trades, more than erasing its 0.5% advance in the previous session, as the U.S. dollar pulled back against the yen. The broader Topix lost 0.6%, with the greenback buing �114.30 after spending Friday's Tokyo trade around the mid �115 level. Decliners included Olympus Corp. (down 3.3%), Fanuc Corp. (down 1.2%), Hitachi Ltd. (down 1.3%), Toyota Motor Corp. (down 1%) and Nissan Motor Co. (also down 1%). Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp. took a 5.5% loss in early transactions, after the telecom major warned of a 10% drop to fiscal-year net profit rather than the small increase it had predicted previously, with a Nikkei news report saying the weaker outlook was due to a new rate plan at its wireless subsidiary NTT DoCoMo Inc. . DoCoMo shares lost 1.9%. The government's approval to reopen Kyushu Electric Power Co.'s Sendai nuclear plant failed to help the utility's shares much, as the move was long expected. Kyushu Electric's shares were down 0.3% amid losses for most of its peers. On the upside, a rebound in crude-oil futures helped send Japan Petroleum Exploration Co. up 3.4% and Inpex Corp. up 3.8%. Sony Corp. bucked the downtrend for the blue chips with a 2% gain that coincided with a report in the Nikkei newspaper, profiling the conglomerate's turnaround. Another Nikkei report tipping an almost 40% gain for Tokyo Seimitsu Co.'s first-half operating profit helped lift the chipmaking-equipment company's shares by 1.1%.