Japan Bourse May Extend Friday's Losses

(RTTNews) - Ahead of Monday's holiday for the emperor's birthday, the Japan stock market had ended the two-day winning streak in which it had jumped more than 900 points or 1.8 percent. The Nikkei 225 now sits just above the 56,825-point plateau and it may take further damage on Tuesday. The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative due to uncertainty surrounding U.S. tariff policies. The European and U.S. markets were down and the Asian bourses are expected to follow suit. The Nikkei finished sharply lower on Friday following losses from the financial shares, technology stocks and automobile producers. For the day, the index tumbled 642.13 points or 1.12 percent to finish at 56,825.70 after trading between 56,680.88 and 56,979.74. Among the actives, Nissan Motor skidded 1.16 percent, while Mazda Motor stumbled 2.61 percent, Toyota Motor crashed 3.68 percent, Honda Motor contracted 2.43 percent, Softbank Group lost 2.50 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial surrendered 2.23 percent, Mizuho Financial tumbled 1.81 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial tanked 2.71 percent, Mitsubishi Electric rallied 2.08 percent, Sony Group plunged 3.16 percent, Panasonic Holdings shed 0.57 percent and Hitachi slumped 1.24 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is bleak as the major averages opened lower and remained in the red throughout the session, ending near daily lows.

The Dow plummeted 821.91 points or 1.66 percent to finish at 48,804.06, while the NASDAQ tumbled 258.79 points or 1.13 percent to close at 22,627.27 and the S&P 500 dropped 71.76 points or 1.04 percent to end at 6,837.75.

The sell-off on Wall Street came amid renewed trade uncertainty following the Supreme Court's decision last Friday striking down most of President Donald Trump's sweeping global tariffs.

Meanwhile, the European Commission issued a statement requesting "full clarity" on the steps the U.S. intends to take following the Supreme Court decision.

Negative sentiment was also generated in reaction to a nosedive by shares of IBM Corp. (IBM) after Anthropic's Claude announced COBOL capabilities. COBOL is a programming language used widely in business data processing, which is a core business for IBM.

Crude oil prices sputtered on Monday as demand concerns reappeared following the uncertainty generated by the tariff issues. West Texas Intermediate crude for April delivery slipped $0.10 or 0.15 percent to $66.38 per barrel.