Japanese Market Modestly Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading modestly lower on Wednesday, adding to the losses in the previous session, following the broadly negative cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is falling well below the 37,300 level, with weakness is exporters and financial stocks partially offset by gains in index heavyweights and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 66.58 or 0.18 percent at 37,264.60, after touching a high of 37,536.23 earlier. Japanese stocks ended sharply lower on Tuesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is gaining more than 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is also adding more than 1 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining almost 1 percent and Toyota is adding almost 3 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is gaining almost 1 percent and Screen Holdings is adding almost 2 percent, while Tokyo Electron is losing almost 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are losing almost 1 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is declining more than 1 percent.

Among the major exporters, Canon is edging down 0.1 percent, Sony is losing almost 1 percent and Panasonic is down more than 1 percent, while Mitsubishi Electric is gaining almost 4 percent.

Among other major losers, Konami Group and Sumitomo Pharma are losing more than 3 percent each.

Conversely, Yokogawa Electric is surging almost 6 percent, Furukawa Electric is gaining almost 5 percent, Fujikura is adding almost 4 percent and Socionext is up more than 3 percent, while Lasertec and Mercari are advancing almost 3 percent each.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 149 yen-range on Wednesday.

On the Wall Street, stocks staged a valiant recovery attempt over the course of the trading day on Tuesday after moving sharply lower early in the session, only to once again come under pressure going into the close.

The tech-heavy Nasdaq ended the day down 65.03 points or 0.4 percent at 18,285.16 after plunging by as much as 2.1 percent to a nearly five-month intraday low. The S&P 500 briefly reached positive territory but closed down 71.57 points or 1.2 percent at a four-month closing low of 5,776.15. The Dow also slumped 670.25 points or 1.6 percent to 42,520.99.

The major European markets also showed significant moves to the downside. While the German DAX Index plunged by 3.5 percent, the French CAC 40 Index dove by 1.9 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index tumbled by 1.3 percent.

Crude oil prices settled lower on Tuesday amid concerns about possible excess supply in the market after OPEC and allies decided to go ahead with their plans of increasing crude output. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for April closed down $0.11 or about 0.2 percent at $68.26 a barrel, settling lower for the third consecutive session.