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| - Tokyo stocks opened lower Monday as investors continued to lock in profits while keeping a close watch on the development of the novel coronavirus outbreak. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.77 percent or 182.89 to 23,645.09 in early trade while the broader Topix index was down 0.81 percent or 13.95 points at 1,718.19. "Profit taking will likely lead trading in Japanese stocks following the downturn on Wall Street," Okasan Online Securities chief strategist Yoshihiro Ito said. "A wait-and-see mood is also likely to grow ahead of a holiday tomorrow," he said in a note. Japanese financial markets will be closed on Tuesday for a public holiday. Wall Street stocks retreated from records on Friday as investors took profits following a strong US jobs report that wrapped up a week of solid economic data. There is a sense among investors that the global economic impact of the virus outbreak could be limited. But the fact that the strong US payrolls print had little impact on markets suggested the coronavirus was the "predominant" trading peg, said Tapas Strickland, director of markets at National Australia Bank. "We will be watching the pace of new infections closely. Markets also assessing the economic impact of containment measures with many cities and provinces (in China) in lockdown until at least February 17," he said. The death toll from the novel coronavirus surged past 900 in mainland China on Monday. The dollar eased to 109.68 yen from 109.80 yen in New York Friday afternoon. In individual stocks trade, Honda jumped 1.69 percent to 2,906 yen after it revised up its full-year profit forecasts. SoftBank Group slipped 0.11 percent to 5,058 yen after surging more than seven percent on Friday on news US hedge fund Elliott Management has built a more than $2.5-billion stake in the group. Sony lost 1.49 percent to 7,709 yen and Toyota dropped 1.05 percent to 7,779 yen. mis/sah/hg
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