Japanese Market Notably Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is notably lower on Friday, giving up some of the gains in the previous two sessions, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 falling below the 33,100 level, following the mixed cues from global markets overnight, with weakness across most sectors, led by financial and technology stocks. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 191.89 points or 0.58 percent to 33,042.25, after hitting a low of 32,918.77 earlier. Japanese stocks closed slightly higher on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is edging down 0.1 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging up 0.4 percent. Among automakers, Honda is losing more than 1 percent and Toyota is edging down 0.1 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is edging down 0.1 percent, Screen Holdings is losing almost 1 percent and Tokyo Electron is down more than 1 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is losing almost 1 percent, while Mizuho Financial and Sumitomo Mitsui Financial are edging down 0.3 percent each.

Among major exporters, Sony and Canon are losing more than 1 percent each, while Mitsubishi Electric is gaining almost 1 percent and Panasonic is edging up 0.2 percent.

Among other major losers, Dentsu Group is losing almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Takashimaya is gaining almost 7 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 144 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks once again turned in a relatively lackluster performance throughout much of the trading day on Thursday but managed to close mostly higher following the mixed performance seen in the previous session.

The Dow showed a notable advance, with the blue chip index climbing 269.76 points or 0.8 percent to 34,122.42, the S&P 500 also rose 19.58 points or 0.5 percent to 4,396.44, while the Nasdaq closed nearly unchanged, edging down 0.42 points or less than a tenth of a percent to 13,591.33.

The major European markets also finished the day mixed. While the French CAC 40 Index rose by 0.4 percent, the German DAX Index closed just below the unchanged line and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index fell by 0.4 percent.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Thursday, continuing to benefit from yesterday's report showing a huge decline in crude oil stockpiles in the week ended June 23. Concerns about rising interest rates and economic slowdown limited the uptick in oil prices. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August ended higher by $0.30 or about 0.4% at $69.86 a barrel.