Tokyo stocks closed lower on Wednesday, with investor sentiment hit by a downswing on Wall Street. The benchmark Nikkei 225 index fell 0.78 percent, or 176.04 points, to end at 22,438.65 while the broader Topix index lost 0.92 percent or 14.48 points at 1,557.23. "Tokyo stocks were down following falls on US shares" amid surging US coronavirus cases, Okasan Online Securities chief strategist Yoshihiro Ito said in a note. He added that there were no fresh clues but traders were eyeing how US markets will perform on Wednesday. Global stocks mostly fell Tuesday as fears sparked by fresh lockdowns and bad economic news prompted profit-taking after strong gains in the previous session. On Wall Street, the tech-heavy Nasdaq finished down 0.9 percent to end a streak of three straight records. In Tokyo stocks trade on Wednesday, IT investor SoftBank Group dropped 2.76 percent to 6,019 yen as the wildly popular video-sharing app TikTok announced it is pulling out of Hong Kong after a new security law. TikTok is owned by China's ByteDance, in which SoftBank Group has invested. Automakers were lower, with Toyota shedding 0.62 percent to 6,728 yen and its rival Honda 1.49 percent to 2,726 yen. Sony slid 0.95 percent to 7,430 yen while Uniqlo casual wear operator Fast Retailing was down 0.36 percent to 62,130 yen. The dollar was flat, trading at 107.53 yen in Asian trade against 107.54 yen in New York Tuesday afternoon. mis-nf/sah/rma