Japan's market drifts lower
TOKYO, Japan -- Tokyo's Nikkei 225 is down 0.66 percent heading into Friday afternoon following lackluster trade on Wall Street.
Investors are winding down trading ahead of a long weekend in Japan, with Japanese financial markets closed Monday for a national holiday.
The Nikkei finished the morning session at 11,065.47 after closing 0.17 percent lower Thursday, led by a fall in tech stocks.
The broader Topix index is down 0.32 percent to 1,118.37.
There are falls for Sony, Hitachi, Toshiba and Fujitsu. Canon, which fell 2 percent Thursday, is rebounding with a gain of 1.5 percent to 5250 yen.
Carmakers Nissan and Toyota are in the red. Among banks, MTFG is up slightly, but Mizuho is down about 1 percent and UFJ is off 0.7 percent.
Consumer finance company Takefuji is up 1.7 percent to 7530 yen after a report that U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs is bidding to buy a stake. (Full story)
In Seoul, the Kospi is 0.5 percent lower to 851.07. That reverses Thursday's gain, when the Kospi closed at a three-and-a-half month high of 855.38.
Samsung Electronics is down 1.1 percent, while Hyundai Motor is about 0.9 percent higher.
Taiwan's Taiex is down about 1.1 percent, while Australia's S&P/ASX200 is up 0.25 percent to trade at fresh record highs of 3633.8.
Singapore's Straits Times index is virtually flat, trading just in the red, as is Hong Kong's Hang Seng index.
