Japanese Market Notably Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese stock market is trading notably lower on Monday, extending the losses in the previous session, despite he broadly positive cues from Wall Street on Friday, with the Nikkei 225 falling below the 41,200 level, with weakness across most sectors led by financial and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 262.95 points or 0.63 percent at 41,193.28, after hitting a low of 41,072.15 earlier. Japanese shares ended significantly lower on Friday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is edging up 0.3 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is edging down 0.2 percent. Among automakers, Honda is gaining almost 1 percent and Toyota is edging up 0.4 percent.

In the tech space, Advantest is tumbling more than 8 percent, Tokyo Electron is losing more than 2 percent and Screen Holdings is declining more than 5 percent.

In the banking sector, Mitsubishi UFJ Financial and Mizuho Financial are losing more than 1 percent each, while Sumitomo Mitsui Financial is declining almost 2 percent.

The major exporters are mixed. Panasonic is adding more than 1 percent and Canon is gaining almost 1 percent, while Sony is losing more than 1 percent and Mitsubishi Electric is down almost 1 percent.

Among the other major losers, Resona Holdings is losing more than 3 percent and NEC is declining almost 3 percent.

Conversely, Fanuc is surging more than 5 percent, while Recruit Holdings and Tokyo Electric Power are gaining almost 3 percent each.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 147 yen-range on Monday.

On Wall Street, the markets put together a solid performance on the final day of the trading week, which saw the Dow reverse losses from the previous session and the NASDAQ and S&P 500 hit fresh record closing highs. The markets opened slightly to the upside on Friday and continued to tick higher as the day progressed.

The Dow jumped 208.01 points or 0.47 percent to finish at 44,901.92, while the NASDAQ gained 50.36 points or 0.24 percent to close at 21,108.32 and the S&P 500 improved 25.29 points or 0.40 percent to end at 6,388.64.

The European markets closed mixed on the day. The U.K.'s FTSE 100 and Germany's DAX closed lower by 0.26 percent and 0.41 percent, respectively and France's CAC 40 ended up 0.17 percent.

Crude oil prices fell on Friday on reports that the U.S. might allow partners of Venezuela's state-run PDVSA to resume operations, sparking concerns of over-supply. West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery closed, down $0.88 or 1.33 percent to $65.15 per barrel.