Japan Stock Market May See Continued Consolidation

(RTTNews) - The Japan stock market on Thursday ended the three-day winning streak in which it had jumped almost 3,800 points or 5 percent. The Nikkei 225 now sits just beneath the 60,820-point plateau and it may extend its losses on Friday.

The global forecast for the Asian markets is mixed to lower on rising oil prices and anticipated weakness among the technology stocks. The European markets were up and the U.S. bourses were down and the Asian markets figure to follow the latter lead.

The Nikkei finished modestly lower on Thursday as losses from the services, transportation, technology and semiconductor stocks were offset by gains from the food and chemical sectors.

For the day, the index sank 429.23 points or 0.70 percent to finish at 60,819.36 after trading between 60,643.79 and 61,788.44.

The lead from Wall Street is weak as the major averages opened mixed on Thursday, bounced higher midday but faded in the afternoon to finish with modest losses.

The Dow slumped 189.40 points or 0.36 percent to finish at 52,297.09, while the NASDAQ sank 100.10 points or 0.39 percent to end at 25,366.09 and the S&P 500 fell 26.98 points or 0.35 percent to close at 7,592.40.

A steep drop by shares of Nvidia (NVDA) initially weighed on Wall Street, with the AI leader plummeted after the company's Board of Directors announced the resignation of embattled CEO Jensen Huang.

Buying interest remained subdued amid a sharp increase by the price of crude oil, which spiked on Thursday as supply disruptions concerns resurfaced after U.S. President Donald Trump said the U.S. is no longer interested in any deal with Iran. West Texas Intermediate crude for December delivery rose $1.96 or 2.27 percent at $88.49 per barrel.

Airline stocks moved sharply lower amid the surge in crude oil prices, while gold, telecom, brokerage, computer hardware and biotech stocks also saw notable weakness.