Japan Stock Market May Hand Back Tuesday's Gains

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market on Tuesday ended the three-day losing streak in which it had plunged almost 3,700 points or 7 percent. The Nikkei 225 now sits just above the 52,250-point plateau although it may see renewed selling pressure on Wednesday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets suggests renewed pressure thanks to a rebound by crude oil prices. The European markets were mixed and flat and the U.S. bourses were slightly lower and the Asian markets figure to split the difference.

The Nikkei finished sharply higher on Tuesday following gains from the financial shares, technology stocks and automobile producers.

For the day, the index jumped 736.79 points or 1.43 percent to finish at 52,252.28 after trading between 51,645.15 and 52,701.99. Among the actives, Nissan Motor accelerated 2.63 percent, while Mazda Motor spiked 3.30 percent, Toyota Motor added 0.62 percent, Honda Motor climbed 1.29 percent, Softbank Group collected 0.66 percent, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial rallied 2.91 percent, Mizuho Financial soared 3.88 percent, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial expanded 2.78 percent, Mitsubishi Electric strengthened 2.55 percent, Sony Group advanced 1.25 percent, Panasonic Holdings vaulted 2.00 percent and Hitachi perked 0.21 percent.

The lead from Wall Street is soft as the major averages opened lower on Tuesday and bounced back and forth cross the unchanged line before settling slightly in the red.

The Dow shed 84.41 points or 0.18 percent to finish at 46,124.06, while the NASDAQ dropped 184.87 points or 0.84 percent to end at 21,761.89 and the S&P 500 sank 24.63 points or 0.37 percent to close at 6,556.37.

The choppy trading on Wall Street came amid a rebound by the price of crude oil, with international benchmark Brent crude futures surging back above $100 a barrel.

Crude oil prices surged on Tuesday as market participants found U.S. President Donald Trump's announcement of U.S.-Iran peace talks to be unfounded. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery was up $3.90 or 4.43 percent at $92.03 per barrel.

Iran's foreign ministry said Trump's remarks were "part of efforts to reduce energy prices and buy time" for military plans.

Closer to home, the Bank of Japan will release the minutes from its monetary policy meeting on Jan. 22-23 later this morning. At the meeting, the BoJ retained its key interest rate at 0.75 percent, as expected, and raised its economic growth outlook - upgrading GDP growth for fiscal 2025 to 0.9 percent from 0.7 percent and fiscal 2026 was lifted to 1.0 percent from 0.7 percent.