Japanese Stock Fall on Bernanke's Inflation Concern

Japanese stocks dropped after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said inflation remains his main concern, even in the face of evidence the U.S. economy is slowing.

Toyota Motor Corp. led declines by exporters after the yen strengthened against the dollar, cutting the value of their overseas sales.

``The Japanese market has to be conscious of the implications of Bernanke's comments,'' said Juichi Wako, a strategist at Nomura Securities Co. in Tokyo. ``The recent tendency toward a stronger yen makes it hard to buy the exporters.''

Inflation A Risk

``Our policy is still oriented towards control of inflation, which we consider to be at this time to be the greater risk,'' the Fed's Bernanke told the Joint Economic Committee of Congress in Washington yesterday.

Those comments came a week after the central bank dropped a reference to possible ``additional firming'' of monetary policy in a statement accompanying its latest interest rate decision. That cheered investors who believed the path was being paved for rate cuts.