TOKYO: Tokyo's Nikkei 225 index lost 0.34 percent on Friday, snapping a six-day winning streak, as the stronger yen dented some exporters' shares and erased early gains.
The benchmark Nikkei lost 49.34 points to finish at 14,632.38, while the Topix index of all first-section shares ended flat, inching up 0.06 percent, or 0.73 points, to 1,201.41.
Despite Friday's downturn, the headline index logged its first monthly gain of 2014, rising 2.29 percent. The Nikkei is still down 10 percent since the start of the year.
Before the market opened, the government released a mixed bag of economic data that showed April factory output and household spending were lower than expected while the jobless rate was at its lowest level in nearly seven years.
"For investors to get excited about stocks, they need a sense of clarity about the economic environment -- it's hard for them to invest in 'shades of grey'," CLSA equity strategist Nicholas Smith told Dow Jones Newswires.
An equity trading director at a European brokerage said a stronger yen made "profit-taking too hard to resist after six straight days of Nikkei gains".
The string of data Friday was not bad enough to spark hopes for imminent monetary easing by the Bank of Japan, which would tend to weaken the yen and lift stocks, the trader said. A weaker yen boosts the profitability of major exporters such as Toyota and Sony.
On currency markets, the dollar weakened to 101.55 yen from 101.78 yen in New York Thursday.
In Tokyo stocks trade, market heavyweight Fast Retailing, operator of the Uniqlo clothing chain, fell 1.24 percent to 33,590 yen, Japan Airlines lost 0.58 percent to 5,310 yen while Mitsubishi slipped 0.19 percent to finish at 2,009 yen.
Toyota rose 1.73 percent to 5,761 yen and Honda gained 0.82 percent to 3,563 yen following Thursday's better-than expected domestic auto output figures for April.
In New York, the battle between two meat processing giants over hot dog maker Hillshire Brands helped boost Wall Street and lifted the S&P 500 to a record.
Investors shrugged off the government's report that the US economy contracted a surprising 1.0 percent in the first quarter as economists said a rebound was already firmly under way. (AFP)
