Japanese Market Notably Lower

(RTTNews) - The Japanese market is notably lower on Thursday after opening lower and briefly swaying in to the green, snapping a four-session winning streak, despite the broadly positive cues from Wall Street overnight. The Nikkei 225 is falling below the 56,100 level, with some weakness in exporters, financial and technology stocks.

The benchmark Nikkei 225 Index is down 229.35 points or 0.41 percent to 56,079.07, after hitting a low of 55,989.33 earlier. Japanese shares ended sharply higher on Wednesday.

Market heavyweight SoftBank Group is losing more than 4 percent, while Uniqlo operator Fast Retailing is adding almost 2 percent. Among automakers, Toyota is losing almost 1 percent, while Honda is edging up 0.3 percent.

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

In the banking sector, Sumitomo Mitsui Financial and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial are edging down 0.1 to 0.5 percent each, while Mizuho Financial is losing almost 2 percent.

Among the major exporters, Panasonic is losing more than 1 percent, while Canon and Sony are edging down 0.3 to 0.4 percent each. Mitsubishi Electric is edging up 0.5 percent.

Among other major losers, Sumitomo Pharma is tumbling more than 6 percent, while ARCHION and SHIFT are losing almost 5 percent each. Socionext is declining almost 4 percent, while Lasertec, CyberAgent, Trend Micro, Disco, NEC and Sumitomo Metal Mining are slipping more than 3 percent each. Taiyo Yuden, Sumitomo Electric Industries, Recruit Holdings and Renesas Electronics are down almost 3 percent each.

Conversely, Yokogawa Electric is advancing almost 4 percent, Toyota Tsusho is gaining more than 3 percent and Sapporo Holdings is adding almost 3 percent.

In the currency market, the U.S. dollar is trading in the higher 158 yen-range on Thursday.

On Wall Street, stocks moved sharply higher at the start of trading on Wednesday and continued to turn in a strong performance throughout the session. With the surge, the major averages ended the day at their best closing levels in about a month.

The major averages all showed substantial moves to the upside after ending Tuesday's trading narrowly mixed. The Dow spiked 1,325.46 points or 2.9 percent to 47,909.92, the Nasdaq surged 617.15 points or 2.8 percent to 22,635.00 and the S&P 500 shot up 165.96 points or 2.5 percent to 6,782.81.

The major European markets also showed substantial moves to the upside on the day. The German DAX Index spiked by 5.1 percent, the French CAC 40 Index surged by 4.5 percent and the U.K.'s FTSE 100 Index jumped by 2.5 percent.

Crude oil prices went into a tailspin Wednesday as supply-disruption risks dissipated following a two-week ceasefire agreement between the U.S. and Iran. West Texas Intermediate crude for May delivery was down $18.15 or 16.07 percent at $94.80 per barrel.