Japanese Market Notably Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is notably lower in choppy trading on Friday, extending the losses in the previous session, with the benchmark Nikkei 225 falling below the 32,400 level, following the mixed cues from Wall Street overnight, dragged by weakness in technology stocks, which mirrored their peers on the tech-heavy Nasdaq. The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is losing 146.11 points or 0.45 percent to 32,344.41, after hitting a low of 32,080.95 earlier. Japanese stocks closed sharply lower on Thursday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing almost 1 percent and Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging down 0.5 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining almost 1 percent and Toyota is edging up 0.5 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest and Tokyo Electron are losing almost 5 percent each, while Screen Holdings is down more than 3 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial is gaining almost 1 percent and Mizuho Financial is edging up 0.1 percent, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is losing almost 1 percent.

Among major exporters, Panasonic is gaining more than 2 percent, while Sony, Canon and Mitsubishi Electric are edging up 0.2 to 0.3 percent each. Among other major losers, Renesas Electronics is losing more than 3 percent.

Conversely, Nidec is surging more than 9 percent, Minebea Mitsumi is gaining almost 4 percent and Hino Motors is adding almost 3 percent.

In economic news, overall consumer prices in Japan were up 3.3 percent on year in June, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said on Friday. That was shy of expectations for an increase of 3.5 percent but was up from 3.2 percent in May. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, inflation rose 0.1 percent - in line with expectations following the flat reading in the previous month.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the lower 140 yen-range on Friday.

On Wall Street, stocks turned in a starkly mixed performance during trading on Thursday after generally moving higher over the past several sessions. While the Dow closed higher for the ninth straight session, reaching its best closing level in over a year, the tech-heavy Nasdaq pulled back sharply following recent strength.

The Dow ended the session well off its best levels of the day but still closed up 163.97 points or 0.5 percent at 35,225.18, while the Nasdaq plunged 294.71 points or 2.1 percent to 14,063.31 and the S&P 500 slid 30.85 points or 0.7 percent to 4,354.87.

Meanwhile, the major European markets moved to the upside on the day. While the German DAX Index climbed by 0.6 percent, the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index and the French CAC 40 Index both advanced by 0.8 percent.

Crude oil prices climbed higher on Thursday and lifted the August series futures contract to a positive close on the expiration day amid fears of declining supplies from Russia. West Texas Intermediate Crude oil futures for August settled at $75.63 a barrel, gaining $0.28 or 0.4 percent.