TOKYO: Tokyo stocks eased Thursday as a stronger yen weighed on exporters, while Toshiba dived on renewed worries about its future as it tries to shore up a battered balance sheet.
The decline came despite the Dow on Wall Street recording its ninth successive all-time high, its longest record streak in 30 years.
Japanese automakers and other firms doing business abroad fell as the yen held its ground against the dollar.
The US unit struggled to bounce back from Wednesday's sell-off after minutes from the Federal Reserve's latest board meeting showed policymakers expect a rate hike "fairly soon" but also see increases being gradual.
In Asia the dollar edged down to 113.25 yen from 113.33 yen in New York, whiles it is also well down from 113.60 yen in Tokyo earlier Wednesday.
A stronger yen is bad for the profitability of Japan's major exporters and tends to dent demand for their shares.
"Exporters are easily sold, and large-cap shares are more likely to face profit-taking from domestic institutional investors," Mitsubishi Akino, an executive officer at Ichiyoshi Investment Management in Tokyo, told Bloomberg News.
"The Fed minutes are only signalling three rate hikes this year, and this doesn't add selling pressure to the yen."
Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei 225 index ended marginally lower, dipping 8.41 points to 19,371.46, but paring earlier sharp loses.
The Topix index of all first-section issues was also slightly off, easing 0.84 points to finish at 1,556.25.
Nissan fell 0.58 percent to 1,112 yen after the automaker said its boss Carlos Ghosn will step down as chief executive, handing over day-to-day operations to co-CEO Hiroto Saikawa.
Ghosn is staying on as chairman of the once-struggling Japanese automaker that he is widely credited with turning around.
Toyota gave up 0.77 percent but ended the day down only 0.08 percent to 6,498.
Banks ended lower with Mitsubishi UFJ dropping 1.00 percent to 764.2 yen.
Toshiba ended the day down 4.32 percent at 215 yen on renewed worries about its future, though it had fallen as much as 9.4 percent in morning trade.
The conglomerate's shares rocketed more than 22 percent Wednesday on hopes it will unload a stake in its prized chip business to raise cash.
The company has warned about billions of dollars in losses on delays and cost overruns at US nuclear power projects.
It has also launched a probe into possible accounting fraud at its US unit Westinghouse Electric.
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