TOKYO –– Tokyo stocks tumbled Monday morning, hit by Friday's record plunges on Wall Street. The U.S. dollar was sharply lower against the yen.

The benchmark 225-issue Nikkei Stock Average lost 1,750.79 points, or 8.57 percent, to 18,683.89 at the end of the morning session. On Friday, the average closed down 91.74 points, or 0.45 percent.

The dollar bought 104.26 yen at late morning, down 1.60 yen from late Friday in Tokyo and also below its late New York level of 105.09 yen on Friday.

On the stock market, the Nikkei index started lower as investors turned bearish after the Dow Jones industrial average plunged 617.78 points, or 5.7 percent to 10,305.77 at Friday's close.

Dropping below the key 20,000-point mark, the Nikkei stood at its lowest level since Jan. 12, with high-technology stocks being hit the hardest.

Sachio Ishikawa, general manager of equities at Chuo Securities, said the panicky sell-off was reaching a feverish pitch.

He said a drop of 1,500 points might prompt the exchange to halt trading, but there had been no sign of that.

Friday's Wall Street's drop was its biggest one-day point drop ever. The Nasdaq composite index closed at 3,321.29 on Friday, down 355.49 points, also a record point drop.

The plunges Friday came after the U.S. Labor Department said consumer prices surged more than expected in March, reflecting higher costs for everything from gasoline to housing.

The Labor Department figures rekindled worries that the Federal Reserve not only would raise interest rates again, but might be more aggressive in trying to cool down the U.S. economy to erase the threat of inflation.

The broader Tokyo Stock Price Index of all issues listed on the first section was down 130.53 points, or 7.89 percent, to 1,523.17. The TOPIX closed down 10.32 points, or 0.62 percent, on Friday.

In currency dealings, the dollar moved sharply lower in line with Friday's movement in New York, where the greenback dropped against major currencies as U.S. stock prices sank on the inflation worries.

Zembei Mizoguchi, international bureau chief at the Finance Ministry, said Monday that Japan's foreign exchange policy had not been affected by the weekend meeting in Washington of finance officials from the Group of Seven nations.

"Our foreign exchange policy remains unchanged. A strong yen before an economic recovery is not desirable," Mizoguchi told reporters in Tokyo.

But there was no mention of "concern" over the yen's rapid rise against the dollar that Japan reportedly wanted to include in a joint communique issued after the G-7 meeting.

Participating in the meeting were finance ministers and central bankers from the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

In other currencies, the euro was traded at 100.82 yen, down from 101.10 yen late Friday in Tokyo.

The yield on the benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond fell to 1.7000 percent from Friday's finish of 1.7900 percent. Its price rose 0.79 point to 101.42.