TOKYO, July 25 (Xinhua) -- Japan's benchmark Nikkei stock index snapped a seven-day winning streak Monday as sentiment was hurt by Wall Street's weakness late last week amid concerns over upcoming U.S. economic data and the Federal Reserve's policy meeting.
The 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average dropped 215.41 points, or 0.77 percent, from Friday to close the day at 27,699.25.
The broader Topix index, meanwhile, lost 12.76 points, or 0.65 percent, to finish at 1,943.21.
Dealers here said that concerns about U.S. economic growth were fueled by subpar output data released late last week.
They added that the market consensus was that second-quarter U.S. gross domestic product data this week will be negative and the Fed will again raise its interest rate by 75 basis points following its two-day policy meeting starting Tuesday.
"Investors want to gauge the direction of stock markets after seeing the outcome of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and the GDP data," Ikuo Mitsui, a fund manager at Aizawa Securities, was quoted as saying.
"Looking at the PMI data that was out last week, the economy is obviously slowing down," Mitsui said.
Investment analysts added that market players sought the safe haven of the yen, which pushed its value up versus the U.S. dollar, hurting exporters here, with the weak output data and poor U.S. corporate earnings reports adding to a risk-off mood.
"The weak data, along with U.S. firms' lackluster earnings last week made investors jittery about the world's largest economy and its effect on the global economy," Yutaka Miura, senior technical analyst at Mizuho Securities Co., said.
By the close of play, electric appliance, machinery, and pulp and paper issues comprised those that declined the most on the Prime Market.
High tech issues dragged, owing to concerns about falling investment amid economic growth woes, with Yaskawa Electric Corp. weighing the most on the Nikkei, dropping 4.1 percent.
Murata Manufacturing, meanwhile, lost 1.4 percent, while Tokyo Electron slipped 0.5 percent. Screen Holdings, for its part, closed the day 0.7 percent lower.
Exporters losing ground on the yen's rise included Toyota reversing 1.7 percent and Sony Group falling 2.7 percent. Fujitsu, meanwhile, ended the day down 1.8 percent.
Issues that fell outpaced those that rose by 1,088 to 672 on the Prime Market, while 78 ended the day unchanged.
Shares changing hands amounted to 823.92 million dropping from Friday's volume of 993.86 million shares.
The turnover on the first trading day of the week came to 2,061.36 billion yen (15.11 billion U.S. dollars). ■