Japan Shares Tipped To Open In The Red On Wednesday

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market turned lower again on Tuesday, one session after snapping the two-day slide in which it had stumbled almost 600 points or 1.7 percent. The Nikkei 225 now rests just beneath the 38,240-point plateau and it may take further damage on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is negative, with weakness expected from the technology and oil companies. The European and U.S. markets were mostly lower and the Asian bourses figure to follow that lead.

The Nikkei finished sharply lower on Tuesday following mixed performances among the financial shares, technology stocks and automobile producers.

For the day, the index declined 539.15 points or 1.39 percent to finish at 38,237.79 after trading between 38,131.79 and 38,485.95.

Among the actives, Nissan Motor cratered 8.02 percent, while Mazda Motor perked 0.15 percent, Toyota Motor rose 0.17 percent, Honda Motor added 0.62 percent, Softbank Group plunged 4.25 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial collected 0.56 percent, Mizuho Financial added 0.54 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial shed 0.41 percent, Mitsubishi Electric improved 0.82 percent, Sony Group lost 0.42 percent, Panasonic Holdings rallied 1.23 percent and Hitachi crashed 8.49 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is mostly soft as the major averages opened mixed on Tuesday and finished in similar fashion.

The Dow gained 159.95 points or 0.37 percent to finish at 43,621.16, while the NASDAQ plummeted 260.54 points or 1.35 percent to close at 19,026.39 and the S&P 500 sank 28.00 points or 0.47 percent to end at 5,955.25.

Significant weakness among technology stocks weighed on Wall Street, as reflected the notable slump by the tech-heavy NASDAQ.

Traders continued to express concerns about the sustainability of the artificial intelligence trade ahead of the release of AI darling Nvidia's (NVDA) fourth quarter results on Wednesday.

The selling pressure also spurred concerns about the outlook for the economy after a Conference Board report showing a significant deterioration by U.S. consumer confidence in February.

Oil futures settled sharply lower on Tuesday as concerns about demand and oversupply in the market weighed and pushed the commodity's prices to the lowest level in about 11 weeks. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April settled lower by $1.77 or at $68.93 a barrel.

Closer to home, Japan will release December data for its leading and coincident indexes later today. The leading index is expected to rise 1.1 percent on month after slipping 1.6 percent in November. The coincident is tipped to add 1.4 percent after losing 1.4 percent a month earlier.