Tokyo (awp/afp) – The Tokyo Stock Exchange stagnated on Monday at the start of the session, despite new data confirming the deceleration of inflation in the United States, which bodes well ahead of this week’s meeting of the American Federal Reserve (Fed) .
The flagship Nikkei index took barely 0.04% to 27,394.39 points around 01:00 GMT and the broader Topix index yielded 0.09% to 1,980.81 points.
The PCE price index in the United States, the Fed’s favored gauge of inflation, slowed to 5% in December year on year from 5.5% in November, data showed on Friday.
This reinforced the prevailing scenario in the trading rooms that the Fed should limit the hike in its key rate to a quarter of a percentage point at the end of the two days of monetary policy meetings on Tuesday and Wednesday.
But this prospect had already supported the Tokyo market last week and investors in Tokyo preferred to be more cautious.
On the side of values
DENTSU: the action of the Japanese giant Dentsu suffered (-2.21% to 4,200 yen). According to the daily Asahi, representatives of the group admitted to Japanese investigators that they had rigged a tendering process for the organization of test events before the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Dentsu’s premises were raided last year as part of this resounding case in Japan, which also includes other aspects such as the awarding under dubious conditions of sponsorship contracts for the Olympics.
On the side of currencies and oil
The yen fell very slightly against the dollar, which was worth 130.07 yen around 01:00 GMT against 129.88 yen on Friday at 21:00 GMT.
The euro rose to 141.43 yen against 141.15 yen on Friday, while being almost stable against the greenback, trading for 1.0872 dollars against 1.0868 dollars at the end of last week.
On the oil market, the barrel of American WTI gained 0.84% to 80.35 dollars around 00:50 GMT and the barrel of Brent from the North Sea gained 0.80% to 87.35 dollars.
etb/jnd