By SHINJI HAKOTANI/ Staff Writer
January 6, 2020 at 12:05 JST
The Nikkei 225 at one point shed more than 400 points on Jan. 6, the first day of trading for 2020. (Reina Kitamura)
Share prices plummeted on the first day of trading in 2020 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Jan. 6 over fears of escalating conflict in the Middle East.
The benchmark Nikkei 225 index opened at 23,319.76, down 336.86 points from the closing price on Dec. 30. The decline in the morning trading session at one point exceeded 500 points.
Over the New Year’s period of holidays, tensions between Washington and Tehran were ratcheted up after U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike in Iraq that killed Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.
This is the second consecutive year in which the TSE opened lower than the close on the final day of trading of the previous year.
On the foreign exchange market in Tokyo, the yen was trading at around 107.90 to the dollar in the morning, up 1.20 yen from levels on the late afternoon of Dec. 30.
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